Frozen Inside
by AlreadyPainfullyGone
Summary: AU Castiel escapes being hanged for witchcraft in new england, and in a snow storm is rescued by two wolf-skinwalkers, one of whom has forgotten what it is to be human. Dean/Castiel based-ish on 'Sorceress' by Celia Rees.
1. Chapter 1

There's a bitter frost coming. It scents the wind on the morning of Castiel's trial, and makes the villagers waspish and vicious. Frost would freeze the ground to iron, and they had bodies to bury. Those of Goodwife Holt and her child, which were still wrapped in sheets and stored in an outhouse to keep them unspoilt until burial.

By the time the trial was over, and Castiel was forced from the church, mouth bleeding from one of the selectmen's blows, hands bound and feet shackled with thick rope ties, the feel of frost had intensified, and fat, feathery flakes of snow were falling silently, grey against the white sky.

Castiel fell to the iron hard dirt and felt the breath burst out of him. His ribs ached beneath his torn shirt, his shorn head feeling the cold most cruelly. Men grabbed him under the arms, dragging him up and along, forcing him towards the edge of town, where the rough wood houses gave way to the dark and forbidding forests of the new world.

Through his one unbruised eye, Castiel saw the hanging tree as it grew out of the white, whirling air. Snowflakes brushed his cheeks and frozen hands, kissing the bare skin of his scalp, melting into the razor cuts. At his side a man touted a thick coil of rope. Castiel felt as if the noose was already on him, choking the life, the sight and breath and will out of him. Someone, Goodwife Johnson perhaps, threw a stone at his thin back. Men spat on him as he passed them by.

The hanging would be brief, thanks to the cold, no one wanted to stand and idle in the freezing maelstrom to watch the witch breathe his last. Castiel was forced to a stop by the tree, watching the noose being tied. He glances furtively at the group of villagers. He knows these people, made the crossing from England with them, carried all they had from Salem up to the new settlement. He had helped to build them sturdy walls, had hunted with them for deer and to kill off the savage wolves that prowled the forest. Now they would hang him for a witch, because of one woman's death, in childbirth, a most dangerous time even with the best of help and provisions, which they were sorely lacking here. Michael had spread vicious lies about him, how he had come to him in a dream and bid him sign the devils book. Castiel knew that his one time friend now hoped to make off with his property – his hand scribed bible and gold ring – both gifts from his mother.

He had come to new England to be free of persecution, to find God in this beautiful, savage place, so different to the priggish, opulent churches he had grown up with. Now he would die here on foreign soil. His body would go unburied, ravaged by wolves.

They force him up onto a propped log, fitting the noose around his neck. Castiel feels the rough fibres bite into his skin, and his heart kicks, his vision swimming with hysteria and tears. They are going to murder him, here, for a crime he hasn't committed.

Just as Zachariah moves to kick the log from beneath his bound feet, a musket shot rings out, and Castiel very nearly falls anyway. A cry goes up 'Attack!' and the villagers run, the women for the safety of their homes and cellars, the men for guns and shot.

Castiel is left, barely breathing as he fights the tight noose, trying to balance himself as he looks through the curtain of snow, searching out the natives who had most likely prompted the men to arms. He can see nothing, and he feels only cold, and the heavy dread of death.

His hands as unresponsive as wax images, he rubs his wrists together, gradually easing off the rope that binds him. He must escape, find refuge. He lifts his freed hands to the noose and slides out of it, dropping to untie his feet. His mind is racing, attempting to formulate a plan. He can steal provisions, warm clothing, he can make good an escape back to Salem, and from there he can stowaway to England.

Barely a second passes once his planning is done, before a voice calls for attention, a man points at him through the whirligig snow, and others, as yet unseen, take up the cry. He is found out, and will surely be caught if he stays a moment longer.

So it is that Castiel Milton, weaponless, dressed in only breeches and shirt, finds himself pelting into the thick border of trees – throwing himself upon the teeth of a new England winter.

(-*-)

For ten hours, Castiel wanders the wilderness of black barked trees and whirling snow. His hands grown numb at first, and then hurt like the blazes when he tries to move them. His thin shirt is useless against the falling snow and the ice cold. He walks on feet he can't even feel in boots that he can't even see through the growing carpet of snow. His face hurts, and his nose runs, the product of which freezes to his lip, as do the wind stung tears on his cheeks. His body is an instrument of agony, and he can barely stay upright as he struggles blindly through the woods.

His skin jumps and prickles with cold, and when his lumpen foot catches in a root, sending him to the ground in a sprawl, he hasn't the strength to get up. He's so tired, so very very tired, and the world is narrowing with darkness, until only snow, glowing white, is visible.

Castiel lets his eyes fall closed, feeling a phantom warmth crawl over his skin. Death, here, will not dishonour him. At least he was not hanged, for all to see.

Snow patters soundlessly onto the side of his face that is turned towards the sky. It feathers his eyelashes and almost blinds him, he blinks slowly, and the flakes move, letting him look out across the bluish crust of the snow.

No moon, no stars illuminate the forest, but he sees the wolf clearly enough.

The animal is large, it's fur a pale gold to rival the snow. Castiel can't even breathe, he hasn't the energy to scream, let alone run. The wolf would surely catch him, even if he could stand.

He knows this wolf. Of this he is certain. In hunting the creatures with the other men of the settlement, Castiel had seen a wolf such as this standing off in the distance. He had raised his musket, but stopped when the animal scented him and turned. The wolf had stared at him, into him, for a long moment, and then it had fled.

Castiel had no love of wolves. Some thought them beautiful, in some way soulful and possessed of a magic quality. To Castiel they were killers, pure and simple. Thin scavenging things, more purgatorial than blessed.

The wolf trots closer, its neat paws punching holes into the snow. It wets its muzzle with a red, steaming tongue, twitches its pointed ears.

Castiel can see the green of its eyes, and he knows that it can only mean death, to see the colour in a wolf's eyes.

He blinks and dark pitches in on him, drowning him like water touched with soot. The next thing he knows, there's a blunt thing prodding at his cheek and lips, and as some feeling returns to the skin, he can feel the rough muzzle of the wolf. His heart beats hard, and he's certain that he has woken in time to meet his end, when the wolf licks his face, and whines like any fireside dog.

It nips his cheek, then falls to scrabbling at the snow, uncovering him. Castiel can't think. Cannot will himself to sense, but when the wolf starts to bite at his frozen shirt, urging him up, he understands what is wanted of him. Even so he cannot comply. His body is too weak, too numb, to move.

The wolf urges for a moment longer, then sits back on its haunches and tips its head back, making a blunt, hooting call.

Castiel lies, half covered in snow still, and the wolf seems to listen for a moment, before creeping closer. It makes a soft 'wuff' sound in its throat, lying down beside him and nuzzling until it's pressed to him firmly. It's fur coat might be rough on the outside, but when Castiel presses his frozen fingers into it, he finds soft white fur underneath. The wolf whines and licks his face, snuffling his throat and the shorn stubble of his hair.

And for a while Castiel forgets to be afraid.

(-*-)

_Sam runs through the forest, fleet on four brown feet. Dean's call was distinctive in the odd way that much about his brother was 'distinctive'. Neither man nor wolf, Dean's voice carried like a mangled cry – a sound produced by a man so long in agony that he had forsaken his humanity._

_Apt, but no less disturbing to the ear for the understanding of it. It had long led the settlers to pronounce the woods haunted, and other animals shied for Dean as a matter of course._

_When he finally finds his brother, deep in the snow locked woods, it is something of a shock to find him coddling a man who seems barely alive._

_Dean hated all men, all people, and he was not one to play nursemaid to any but Sam, and then only when strictly necessary._

_Sam pauses a few feet away and yips._

_Dean looks at him, his head nudged up under the man's chin. Sam can see his ragged hair, the rope bruises on the man's wrists. He whines at the back of his throat, this is dangerous and stupid, and he will not do what Dean called him here to do._

_But when Dean gets up and patters over to him, growling and raising all the hairs on his body, Sam is reminded of his place as the youngest. Dean is very much the one in command, and he wants to take a human back to their den._

_Sam lowers his nose to the ground submissively, and he's rewarded with a neat bite on the ear. He glares at Dean and his brother just waves his tail before dashing back to his find._

_Sam inspects the man himself, under Dean's watchful eyes. He wishes he could speak to Dean, but he knows that shifting back to human form in this weather would be suicidal. And even then, Dean hadn't changed for over five years. It seemed unlikely that he would wear the face of a man again for the first time tonight. So Sam is restricted to making a questioning noise at the back of his throat._

_Dean makes a series of yips more suited to a puppy than the hardened, cynical man that Sam knows he is. His brother sniffs the unconscious man demonstratively, whimpering elatedly. _

_Sam sniffs cautiously._

_He can't smell a damn thing, not besides blood and sweat and fear, and the smells of the forest. But Dean is nudging under the man's chin, slightly under his shirt, pursuing an odour that has him enraptured. And as much as Dean liked to scent humans in a state of fear, this was something more than that, it was almost..._

_Sam feels a deep disturbance in his mind. He had not realised that Dean was so far gone into his wolf state, so far removed from humanity. Dean had never liked strangers and Sam had put his aversion and hatred of the settlers down to simple hostility. Now he wonders if Dean even remembers that he was once a man at all. This behaviour, the way Dean scents and rubs against the unconscious figure half covered in snow, is too close to the mating behaviour of other wolves they've seen._

_Dean has found a potential mate, and that mate is both male, and a species that Dean doesn't recognise as his own anymore. _

_A sharp nip on his hind leg snaps him out of his black thoughts, Dean circles him, and indicates with his muzzle that Sam should drag Castiel's shirt on the one side, while Dean takes the other._

_Sam knows that without them, this man will die. If he refuses to help, Dean will probably try to force him to. So Sam takes his place and helps Dean to save a man from certain death. All the while he watches his brother, tail waving ecstatically as he drags the man through the snow, wondering what on earth could come of this, and how badly it was going to end for them. _


	2. Chapter 2

_Sam drags the unconscious body of the man through the snow, his brother at his side. Around them the forest is more hostile than ever, the dark branches and close packed trees augmented with teeth of ice. The snow is not a soft, cottony fall – it is barbed, crusted with a roughness like salt, as sharp as the barnacles on a ship's hull._

_When they reach the small dark hole in the earth that constitutes the entrance to their den, Dean scrabbles down first, pulling the man as Sam nudges from outside. The cold nips at his back like a furious animal, and Sam begins to worry that the man may not survive, and may already be dead. _

_Within the den, a dug out womb of earth and roots, the air is at least a little warmer than it was outside. But the temperature is still well below freezing, and even Sam, under his shaggy fur, is feeling the chill. _

_Dean whines and circles the man, sniffling and nosing him, his tail alternatively waving wildly and hanging between his legs nervously. It's downright disturbing, seeing his brother like this. Five years ago, when Dean had last been human, he'd been quiet, unless provoked, he'd kept to himself and hadn't pursued any of the women in their village. Now he's practically foaming at the mouth, over a shorn headed criminal. _

_Sam can't imagine something that smells that good. To get this reaction it much smell better than anything they've encountered before - better than the cooking of the settlers, fresh blood on the forest ground, even better than the sea smell on the northern wind. _

_He watches as Dean nudges the man, finding his fingers under the wet end of his shirt, licking them with his rough tongue to thaw them. _

_Sam huffs and Dean growls warningly. He's not taking any disloyalty on this._

_Sam tries to join him in licking the man's hands, trying to bring blood and life back into them. But Dean outright snarls at him at that. His lips pull back and Sam's faced with two rows of white teeth and raging green eyes._

_Sam backs away, whimpering. Dean's never been this violent with him before._

_Dean glances at him, pricks up his ears, and then rushes forwards to lap clumsily at Sam's nose, tail lashing softly. _

_And Sam forgives him._

_Dean is his brother, his family, his pack. Even if he can be short sometimes, and temperamental, Sam continues to love him. That's his job._

_There isn't much in their den, but there are bear skins, leftover from their kills earlier in the year. Sam made a good living shifting back and taking the skins to settlements to trade. He's glad they still have them._

_It takes him only a few seconds to shiver back into human form, for the first time in months. He feels shaky and tingly, like he's been bedridden these past months. He shuffles on his knees and picks up the skins, dragging them towards Dean and the unconscious man still lolling on the dirt. _

_Dean takes the edge of his shirt between his teeth and tugs upwards, growling in frustration when he discovers that without hands the task is impossible. _

_Sam slowly takes the shirt into his hands, keeping his head lowered as he undertakes the duty of removing the clothes from his brother's potential mate. Dean watches him warily, green eyes intent, but he refrains from growling, and Sam manages to disrobe the stranger and cover him with the skins in short order._

"_Keep him warm." Sam says, his voice scratchy._

_Dean watches him for a second, before nosing up a corner of one skin and crouching, wriggling underneath, his back legs pawing at the dirt as he disappears underneath. Sam sits back and allows the change to overcome him again – it's too cold to maintain his naked human body. _

_He lies, belly down, on the man's bare feet, and even though Dean rumbles quietly, Sam knows that this is permissible. _

_He pricks up his ears and listens for the man's heartbeat, his breathing, and hears alongside it the soft snuffling sounds of Dean as his brother continues to scent the man's skin. Small, contented sounds, slip from Dean's throat, and Sam lays down his ears and closes his eyes, sure now, of his brother's strange devotion._

Castiel wakes up in the dark.

He panics instantly, mostly because he's weighed down and penning in on all sides. Trapped in a fearful darkness that makes his bones ache with its weight. Opening and closing his eyes changes nothing, and the air smells of soil and damp.

For a moment he is certain that he has been laid in his unmarked grave, and that the noose had not done its job.

He moves, and realises that he's naked. Had they taken his clothes before he was buried? Did Michael want even the shirt from his back? The stain on him from being hanged for witchcraft was bad enough, but being slung, naked, into a paupers unmarked and unconsecrated grave in the wilderness.

And now he had woken in it, alive. The horrors would never cease.

Castiel tries to move and a quiet growl stops him.

Fear strips away the last of his strength, leaving him helpless on the dirt, in the dark. He's so very, very cold, he hadn't noticed in his panic, but now that he has he can't ignore it. Every inch of him is freezing, save from the skin along his left side, and stomach.

His mind is slow and confused, the cold gnawing away at his senses and intellect. He's in his grave, but...with an animal? A live wolf? Or maybe it's the sound of hell's demons, coming to claim his soul as one of the damned.

His heart thuds and he can't think straight. There's no rhyme or reason to where he has found himself. Is he dead? Or dying?

Castiel tries to move and the growl bubbles up again.

This time there is no mistaking the source of the sound, the vibrations of the wolf's throat thrum through his stomach, and Castiel feels them travel up his spine – making him tremble with fear.

But where did the wolf come from? How was it here, with him?

Even under the persecution of his fellows, Castiel hadn't felt this kind of naked terror. He had feared for his life, but he had always thought that the truth would come to light. At his execution, he had known he was going to die, and yet he had remained calm, bitterly so – knowing that the fools who would hang him would meet their end in Hell.

Now though, now he understands what fear is made from.

He tries to slide away from the feeling of warm fur against his side, from the wolf's head on his stomach. Unfortunately, the creature has apparently had enough of being disturbed. It gets to its feet, disturbing the coverings that Castiel now realises are draped over him. He is not buried, merely swaddled in something heavy.

In the dark, under the heavy coverings, Castiel can just about see the pale muzzle and gleaming eyes of the wolf as it places its feet on either side of him, leaning its face down, level with his own.

The wolf sniffs him carefully, then lies down on Castiel's chest, heavily, and begins to lick his face, rough tongue moving quickly and efficiently. It's tail whispers over Castiel's legs, moving lazily.

The warmth of the wolf's body is seductive enough that Castiel finds it hard to keep his eyes open, even if he's still slightly shaking with fear. But the weight of the creature is so much that it prohibits him moving much. Instead he has to lie, prone, as his face is gently washed. After a while the wolf huffs a sound that seems to indicate a job well done – then it moves on, getting up and moving under the covering, licking the hand that rests on Castiel's stomach. When the wolf moves lower, lapping at the skin of his stomach, Castiel squirms and mutters, still trying to get his thoughts in order and his body to stop shaking.

The wolf nips him lightly and whines quietly, rubbing the side of its face against his belly.

Something tugs the coverings from his face, and Castiel flinches as cold air hits his skin. He looks up into the brown snout of another wolf and feels his stomach twist in fright as the wolf currently nuzzling him bellow, picks itself back up onto its feet and squirms up his body to exit next to his head.

The pale gold wolf, larger than its shaggy dark brown fellow, butts its head against the other's and growls faintly. The dark wolf dips its head towards the ground and its hind quarters thump down onto the earth.

Castiel tries to move, if only to ball up defensively, but shivers convulsively and has to stop and lie back onto the earth.

When he next looks up, both wolves are watching him.

The pale one huffs, circles him, and plumps down at his side, snuffling the few scraps of hair on his shorn and nicked scalp.

Then the darker wolf...stretches, a long ripple of muscle that keeps going, and stretching out until Castiel is looking at a naked man crouched on the floor, his long dark brown hair down to his shoulders and full of knots.

Castiel promptly loses his tenuous grip on consciousness.

_Sam picks up a spare skin and wraps it around himself. When the man wakes again, he will attempt to explain to him exactly what situation he has found himself in, and what Dean's intentions are._

_If Sam understands his brother correctly._

_It's possible that he doesn't. Dean isn't exactly gregarious in this form, and as good as Sam is at reading his body language and understanding Dean's various sounds – it's no substitute for questions and answers in the tongue of human beings. _

_But, from the way Dean is acting, Sam is fairly certain that Dean's decision is final. He's made a choice, bizarre and twisted up as it is, and now all Sam can do is go along with it, and try to get the stranger through it unscathed, and their secret kept, just that, a secret. _

He's sleeping again. PersonSam is waiting. His mate is sleeping.

So Dean sleeps.

It smells in the den now. Like the man. Like when Dean saw him in the forest. Now, before now.

Hunting.

They were both hunting.

It smells nice.

So Dean sleeps happy.


	3. Chapter 3

_It takes three days for the man to return to the world of the living._

_Sam tends to him as best he can, having recovered some winter clothing from the wax paper bundle he'd buried a few months previously. Dressed and suffering a severe lack of both patience and food, Sam attempts to keep both himself and the man alive._

_Dean helps, but only in the limited way he can – bringing winter thin rabbits to the den and watching as Sam skins them. Dean eats the steaming offal from the snow outside, and Sam cooks the meat into thin broths, feeding the man whenever he regains consciousness. _

_Dean also pilfers from the settlement a few miles away. He drags things back to the den – a chicken, a blanket, a bunch of carrots – trotting with his head held high, proud of his achievement. Though Dean does not care for the carrot broth himself. He also digs for roots that Sam needs for fever medicine. _

_Sam lashes together branches into a pallet, putting the skins on it and laying the man down gently. He's dressed the stranger in some of Dean's old things, that he'd wrapped with his own in hide and wax paper. The clothing is far too big for the thin man, but it seems to help with keeping him warm. _

_The sight of the man in _his _clothes drives Dean to distraction. When he first sees what Sam has done, he ducks and dodges around the man, bowing to press his nose to the floor, then bucking his head up. His possessiveness and mating tricks don't alarm Sam now as much as they had done. Whenever Dean isn't hunting for food or supplies, he curls up on the bed beside the man, cleaning his wet paws and snuffling down protectively. _

_Sam gets what little sleep he can on the ground, wrapped in an extra skin, with his boots on. He doesn't begrudge the stranger his cover and moderate comfort, he is suffering from cold after all. Still, Sam remembers when his welfare was Dean's highest priority, and he cannot help but feel the passing of that era, into the bitter loneliness of a cold winter bed. _

_After three days of his nursing, the man finally wakes up, and does not immidiatly pass out again after consuming some food. Sam props him up on a folded skin, and, with Dean struggling to bound up and lick the man's face, he asks. "What's your name?"_

_The man's wide blue eyes don't leave Dean, who is trying to nose around Sam's outstretched arm, growling impatiently at his beta to move away. But he does answer,_

"_Castiel."_

"_After the angel." Sam nods, mostly to himself. "I'm Samuel, Sam. You're one of the settlers. The puritans?" _

_Castiel blinks at him, his eyes huge in his pale face, his shorn hair like a mange ravaged coat. _

"_Are you going to kill me?"_

"_Why would I do that, I've spent the last three days trying to keep you from dying." Sam says. "Coming into the woods, without warm clothes, without food – what did you expect but death? It seems a strange time to grow particular over which world you stay in, and which you depart for."_

"_I was cast out."Castiel says weakly. "I only meant that...I'm grateful, but you have the appearance of a native, and...I thought that perhaps you would kill me for sport, or ransom me to my kinsmen, of which I have none, I should tell you now."_

_Dean finally shunts Sam to one side with a growl, and stalks over the bed, burrowing close to Castiel's side and licking his cheek as the man freezes in fear._

"_He won't hurt you." Sam tells him. _

"_Is he...have you tamed him?" Castiel asks, barely daring to move his mouth._

_Sam wonders how he can best explain what their situation is, and whether it will send the man insensible again._

"_He is not tamed. But he will not hurt you – he's decided that you...belong with him."_

Castiel blinks, feeling the continued rough touch of tongue on his face, as the wolf licks him ardently, stopping only to rub its coarse muzzle against his face and whimper. How can he belong with this creature? And what in God's name could a wolf _decide, _let alone communicate to a human being.

Then he remembers, the strange fever dream – the shaggy brown wolf that had turned into...

He looks at the man, heart skewered with fear.

The wolf makes a deep sound of discontent, it's front paws coming up to press on his shoulder heavily.

The man's face stiffens.

"Dean." He says, a warning, but one that doesn't seek to command, rather, to question.

The wolf turns its head and whines at the man.

Sam gestures at the cooking pot in the corner, that still holds the dregs of some broth or another.

The wolf dips away from Castiel, pattering to a hole in the corner of the dark den, the only source of light, and scrabbling up a short tunnel.

"He's gone hunting, for you." Sam tells him. "He brought you all the food you've had these past few days...he cares for your welfare, more than any of your dweller friends."

"You're speaking of him as if he's a person, with reason."

Sam looks saddened, casting his eyes at the large, ripped shirt that Castiel now recognises as strange to him.

"I can't speak for what he is now...but he was once a man, with reason and thought like any other. He was my brother. Dean."

Castiel realises that the man is probably mad, driven so by the wild nature of the country that they are in. Perhaps he was driven from his own village, and fell to this...fable, to comfort himself. Maybe he'd adopted an abandoned wolf pup, and trained it as any man might train a dog.

"You think I'm insane." Sam says, shrewd eyes taking in Castiel's rigid, fearful body.

"What you're asking me to believe is insane."

"You saw me change, change from a wolf into the man you see before you. My brother and I are creatures, sometimes men, sometimes wolves – it's in the bloodline of the native people here, my father was one, and our mother was a settler."

Castiel is captivated despite himself.

"When she met my father she was helpless with infatuation, and when she fell pregnant by him, her good Christian friends turned on her. They turned her onto the mercies of the woods, beat her savagely, and sent her on her way." Sam looks grimly thoughtful. "Perhaps that is why my brother has such rage in him - that injustice hurt him too."

"Did she go to the natives?" Castiel asks, before he can stop himself.

"My father's people were not sympathetic, and they asked him to take her away, and live with her – without his tribe and their protection. Banished, they lived in a cave through a bitter winter, without much food, without hope or comfort...their love was tested, and found wanting...and it was that bitter winter that gave birth to my brother."

_Sam has often thought on what it must have been like for Dean, who was, unlike most shifters, not born in human form. He was born a blind cub, furless and wriggling. Their father had told them the story. Dean, born in the middle of a terrible snow storm, emerged into the world with teeth and claws ready. Expecting a fight._

_Dean as a child is almost unthinkable now._

"After the birth of their son, my parent's grew closer again. Spring came, and they were able to forage. They made a comfortable shelter in the cave, and as the years went by, they became a stronger pair than any who married in either the native or settler camps. I was born in a summer four years after Dean's birth."

_Times had been good for their parents when Sam was born. They had prospered in their new home, and the troubles of his father's people had yet to reach them._

_It was not to last._

"My father's people were subjugated by the settlers, they killed those who would not conform to their demands – to wear their clothes and build churches for their God...eventually, these men heard that an English woman was living with a native man, they hunted her down, and chanced upon their home whilst my father was away."

_He remembers that day, the day the men came with rifles and muskets. Dean had been six, Sam two, and he had slept in his basket while Dean had tried to keep the men away from his mother. Dean had only spoken of that day once, and so Sam knew that the men had tied him up, and forced him to watch as they raped and murdered his mother. They had considered her lower than any native, and her children were born into bad blood. _

_Luckily, their father had arrived home, and slit the throats of two of the three settler men before they could harm the baby. They had however, run cuts across both of Dean's cheeks, as a punishment for the kicks and bites he had dealt them. It was only their speed in catching him, and Dean's own horror, that had prevented him from shifting and killing them all. _

"Our father died avenging our mother's death, trying to kill the man who got away that day."

_Sam held bath furious tears at that, thinking of his father, hanged for all to see in the centre of the town, flogged and beaten, his teeth pulled out and his face beaten beyond recognition. _

"My brother found the man who killed him, and my mother – five years ago." Sam concludes darkly. "He is no longer amongst the living...and if there is a God, then that man is surely in hell."

Castiel sits, appalled by the cruelty in Sam's story. He had known his people were not innocent, but he had not believed they could be so vile, so...savage.

But then, Michael would happily have sent him to his grave, painfully and publically, for a handful of trinkets.

"Dean has remained a wolf ever since the day he killed that man, I doubt he remembers much of what it is to be human. Perhaps it was too painful, to be a man without the fire of revenge to stave off his grief."

"I am...truly sorry, for all that has happened to you." Castiel says, and means it with all his soul.

"If you are sorry...then you will not leave us." Sam tells him.

Castiel balks at that. "I cannot stay here...you are both...forgive me, but it is true – practically witches, heathen creatures...to stay here would be to risk my soul."

"Then take your soul out into the snow, and die." Sam says. "That is your only other choice... but if you leave it will break my brother. He is drawn to you, as his mate – his partner for all his life, and if he loses you, then he truly has nothing."

"He will have you."

"I am not the world to him." _Not anymore._

"You want me to stay here, and..." Castiel's face flushes, despite the cold. "_Mate, _with an...animal. A _man. _That is...beyond sin, it is the darkest I could do."

"Be his." Sam says. "That's all he wants. Or, all he'll want once I explain to him the impossibility of anything else...he will settle, for having you be his."

"And what about me? I've escaped death, twice – for this? For nothing, life in a hole in the ground." Castiel cries.

"You will have him, for the rest of your life." Sam says seriously. "Love, devotion, protection, care...all of which you are sorely lacking."

_He watches Castiel think it over, and hopes to God that Dean will understand that he cannot _have _Castiel, in that way. That he can make his brother see the impossibility of the thing – before it goes too far. A man and a man was forbidden by both native lore and Christian morals – a man and a wolf was even worse. He did not want his brother to commit such a crime, and add to the stain on himself that a ravaged childhood, and murder, had already spread so far. _


	4. Chapter 4

**Hello! Sorry for the lack of updates – uni work etc kind of took over. Anyway, I have also been very busy putting together my new novel, an adaptation of my fic 'A moment to be real'. You can get it on amazon for a kindle device, or computer or phone, or as a paperback from . Links in my profile **

_Sam has no way of making improvements to their winter home. As he's never had to live within the earthen burrow as a human before, it had never before needed any way to cook or make a fire inside, and the ceiling was far too low. Now though, it seems as if they will have to journey to their summer camp, if only to supply himself and Castiel with the everyday minutia of survival. _

_Today however, Sam cooks outside, cutting up shrivelled onions with a hunting blade and frying them in the soup pot, adding snow and dried herbs, melting it down into a broth. Whatever Dean brings him, he can add to the stew, to braise the tough winter meat into something edible. _

_But, when Dean does eventually return, his thick golden fur peppered with snow, and a dead rabbit lolling in his jaws, he trots right past Sam and the cooking fire, scrabbling down into the burrow. _

_Sam sighs, but does not follow. He cannot enter and the leave the burrow's narrow mouth as a man, only as a wolf, and it had taken long enough to push all of his clothes outside, shift, and then re-dress in the snow, an experience he was not keen to repeat._

_He would simply have to trust Dean not to overstep himself._

Castiel was hunched on the nubby, uneven palette, smelling the smoky air and feeling his thin stomach growl against his frozen hand. Pickings had been scarce even at the village, and they had starved him all the while he had lain in the root cellar, awaiting trial. He's famished, and cold, and the rough skins around him are unfamiliar and rude against skin more used to better treated furs, wool blankets and linens.

He freezes when the wolf slides out of the tunnel, padding towards him with a dead rabbit clenched in its jaws. There's blood on the wolf's muzzle, snow on its fur, its eyes are intent, bright green and faintly reflective.

Could this thing really be a man? A human being in a wolf's skin?

Even if it is so, Dean has native blood, the same as his brother. There is a wildness bred into them that Castiel simply does not possess, and this frightens him.

The wolf trots forwards and drops the rabbit into Castiel's lap, its head lowered modestly. Then the creature looks up at him, tail waving lazily, as if expecting some kind of praise. Castiel touches the rabbit with the tips of his fingers. Its fur is soft, so very soft, and the animal is still warm.

He looks up into Dean's eyes.

Dean growls softly, his ears pricking up, and Castiel quickly looks down.

He feels the wolf come closer, and slowly utilises the only piece of advice Sam had had time to impart to him. He lies down carefully, the rabbit still in his lap. With one hand he slowly eases the skins aside, exposing his stomach in its thin, baggy shirt.

Dean wuffs approvingly, nosing Castiel's stomach the way Sam had told Castiel that he would. It's a gesture of submission, and one Sam uses himself to appease his brother. However, Dean quickly snuffles lower, curious licking at the trail of fine dark hair on Castiel's abdomen. The settler blushes fiercely, and attempts to cover himself without thinking, one hand coming up and batting against the side of Dean's muzzle.

The wolf rumbles softly, and noses him again, reminding him just who is at whose mercy.

Castiel lies still, afraid and ashamed, as Dean tests the springy, soft hair against his damp nose, then with the tip of his rough tongue. He explores lower, finding that the hair grows thicker and longer, and that there is a scent caught in it, a strong, potent odour of male skin and virility. Dean inhales deeply, nose searching lower, knowing what the hidden root of a man looks like from his vague human memories, but experiencing a giddy new wave of sensation now that he is exploring it in his animal form.

Castiel closes his eyes, his face burning against the chill air, and fights the rising tears that creep through him. He has never been touched in these places before, anywhere by his face and hands has remained unseen by others since childhood. With the exception of his trial, and the examinations given to him then, Castiel has never been naked before another living being – even in matters of bodily function he prefers privacy. He has never had a sweetheart, and has never come close to being married.

This then, is somehow too much – too much fear, and intimacy that he does not want in these strange circumstances. There is a wolf, scenting his skin, and beyond that wolf, behind it's features, is a man, just like him – but with the blood of a savage. A murderer, and sodomite.

A soft sound of fear escapes his throat before he can stop it, and to his surprise, Dean jerks away almost at once, lying over his bared skin and tickling it with his soft belly fur as he shields Castiel's dignity.

Castiel looks down into Dean's eyes, finding that he can read worry there.

He raises a hand, unsure what his intentions are, and then exhales sharply as Dean butts his head against his palm. He rubs his fingers behind Dean's ears, and the wolf rumbles happily, its tail lashing.

"What are you, really?" Castiel murmurs. "An animal, or just a man who walks as one?"

Dean looks at him, eyes narrowing, though he continues to rub against Castiel's petting hand. He has the look of a man knowing he is being discussed, but in a foreign language that he can barely understand. The tone, more than anything, is what communicates Castiel's meaning.

Castiel sighs, and slowly eases away from the wolf, picking up a skin to wrap himself in, taking the rabbit in one hand. He looks into Dean's confusing eyes.

"Thank you Dean."

The wolf wuffs and trots ahead of him to the burrow's entrance, glancing back to make sure he's following.

Castiel slips his feet into the battered moccasins that Sam had unearthed for him, slippers of skins decorated with dyed porcupine quills, now faded and aged. These garments, he has been told, once belonged to Dean. When Dean had been a man.

What could possibly have happened to the strong, strapping man whose clothes he now wore, that had made him wish only to live his life as a wolf? What could drive a man to such lengths to escape humanity?

Dean waits for Castiel to enter the tunnel first. He's lucky to be so thin, in his normal condition he'd have no chance of getting through the hole and out into the air. Dean scuffles out behind him, nudging Castiel's buttock as he freezes in the mouth of the burrow, feeling cold air on his face, and snow under his searching fingers. Castiel slides out into the freezing cold of the forest, bundling the fur around him closely. Without the protection of the rich, dark earth, he is suddenly reminded of just how small he is in comparison to the wide strange country that he inhabits. The light is stunningly bright as it glances off of the snow, blinding his weak eyes.

He hands the rabbit off to Sam, who takes his knife and begins to skin it straight away.

_Castiel sits down on a fallen trunk and hunches against the cold, Dean trots over and clambers awkwardly up onto the log as well, hind paws slipping on the icy bark as he tries to balance and raise his head higher than Castiel's in a show of dominance. If Castiel notices he shows no sign of it, though at least Dean no longer seems to frighten the wits out of him, as he had done before. Sam continues to skin the rabbit, then cleans the offal from the small creature, dropping it onto the snow. Dean abandons his perch to come sniffing for food, and snatches up the meat without hesitation. He is the alpha, and so he eats first. Sam is grateful that Dean has allowed him and Castiel the meat of the rabbit._

_Dean patters over the frozen surface of the snow, climbing back up beside Castiel, nudging against his side and snuffling at his face with his bloodied snout. Sam watches out of the corner of his eye, worried that Castiel might rebuff Dean and cause some kind of altercation, but the man only shrinks away slightly, then holds up his shirt sleeve to his mouth and wets it, pulling it over his hand and wiping Dean's muzzle with the plain, wet, homespun. _

_Dean turns his face this way and that, allowing Castiel to clean the rabbit blood from his fur. Sam can tell that his brother is attempting to contain his pleasure, and at least show some kind of decorum in front of his beta, but Dean's tail twitches, an aborted waggle that betrays him._

_When Castiel has finished, he lowers his hand slowly, as if surprised by his own action. As well he might be, having only just deigned to stay with them. Sam supposes that Castiel is only trying to deal with Dean's strange attention by making it as tolerable as possible._

_Still, when Dean moves to reciprocate, lapping daintily at Castiel's red and frozen nose, the man stays still, and lets him._

Dark comes quickly with snow.

Dean watches the fire twitch and play on the logs in the stone circle. Sam cooks rabbit, takes some for himself, and leaves the rest. Dean takes Castiel to the fire, lets him take some stew for himself.

They sit by the fire. Sam, Dean, and his mate, warm against his side.

Snow falls again, softly.


	5. Chapter 5

**Sorry for the lack of updates – having massive writers block :P **

**You can get my new novel on amazon for a kindle device, or computer or phone, or as a paperback from lulu(.com). Links in my profile **

_They move from the den to the summer place, with Castiel helping to carry the pallet with their meagre belongings on it. Dean circles them, alternatively leading and scouting at their sides. The snow, fresh fallen, crumps beneath their feet, and Dean's paws patter on the icy surface. _

_The summer place is a cave in a cliff a few miles from their winter burrow. The cliff, part of a lower range of mountains, was clad in creepers and vines in summer. In winter it was naked to the elements, but somewhat warmer than the burrow, and easier for men to live in, rather than wolves. _

_They arrive, not before time in Sam's opinion, covered in snow and swaddled in furs. Climbing up to the opening of the cave takes a good while, mostly because Castiel is not fit enough to climb well, and the way is perilous with ice. Sam ends up hauling him along with a bit of fraying rope, telling him where to put his feet and where to grasp the rock. With the pallet strapped to his back, Sam moves slowly. Dean scrabbles behind them, back legs skidding, front paws clawing at the rock, face serious as a sharpened icicle, despite the ridiculous clumsiness of his limbs. _

_Outside of the cave is a ledge, and on it is a short wall of stones slathered in mud and stuck together. It sits in the shadow of the cave entrance, invisible from below, and was built by Sam's father to keep the elements out._

_This cave was his first home, the site of Dean's birth, his birth, and then of his mother's rape and murder. _

_Once past the wall, they stop in a small space, dry and cool with a hard stone floor scattered with leaves. Sam takes in the familiar paraphernalia – the wooden frame hanging over to one side, baring old pans and their knife sharpening stone. There's a hole in the centre of the floor, for a cooking fire, and on the wall, in the soft rock, as some of the carvings his father had made. Dean had helped, and he had shown them to Sam in the years after their mother had died, when they still came here in summer, when Dean was still a man, who spoke words and lived like a human. The carvings show the history of their father's tribe, and Dean had added some in his shaky child's hand – stick houses and a few pens of oddly rendered animals – a village. The only toy Dean had ever had – a drawing of a community that he would never have._

_Castiel shrugs off his snow spotted furs, looking around the room. Dean whips around the space quickly, coming back and wuffing at the two of them – the place is clear._

"_This is where you live?" _

"_In summer." Sam says gruffly. "I'll get a fire going, to warm us."_

"_I didn't mean to offend..."_

"_I don't much care." Sam mutters._

_Castiel dips his shorn head and goes to the fire pit, finding some logs and sticks piled beside it, left in readiness some months ago. A pair of flints sit in a clay bowl by the fire and Castiel assembles the dry tinder and wood into a neat stack._

"_I can do that." Sam tells him._

"_I'm used to it." Castiel strikes the stones deftly and sends sparks into the tinder, stirring it gently and creating a small cluster of yellow flames. They light his face as he looks up at Sam, lending a haunted tinge to his hollowed eyes and sharp cheeks. "I can be useful, Sam...and I don't mean to question this life you lead...only, it is new to me."_

"_It's your life now too." Sam says, but his voice is softer now, less affronted. _

_Dean comes to sit beside Castiel, nudging up against him, rising up and planting his paws on Castiel's shoulder, forcing him to lie down so that Dean can curl up against his stomach and lay his head on Castiel's chest, letting out a humf of air that stirs the fire, making it leap and dance. _

_Sam turns away from them, unpacking the pallet and breaking it down for firewood. He makes up a large bed of furs and trading company blankets of scratchy wool, then pauses, uncertain as to what he should make of his own sleeping arrangements. _

_Dean sits up and wuffs at him, twitching his head back, effectively beckoning Sam over. Sam follows Dean's direction, and comes to sit beside Dean and Castiel. After Dean lies down and whines softly from Castiel's lap, Sam lies down too, beside the fire, and Dean squirms away from Castiel to lie between the two men, lapping lazily at Castiel's cold cheek. Sam lies against Dean's back, and his brother rumbles softly, breathing gently. _

_Later they sleep like that, under the furs and blankets. Castiel on his side with Dean curled against him, and Sam less than an arm's length away, a breath from Dean's warm fur. _

_(-*-)_

Castiel, despite himself, begins to get used to his new life.

In England he had lived in a single room above a blacksmiths, a place owned by his second cousin twice removed. Dreadfully smoky, cold and damp as well.

He had crossed the ocean on that abominable ship, months at sea, eating oatmeal that was so stale it refuse to thicken, ships biscuit more weevil than morsel, and drinking water long gone stagnant. The quarters that they had inhabited had been crowded, smelling of effluent and rank bodies, filled with the squalling of babies and the squabbles of men.

Even once settled in the village, there had been wolves and natives in the forest, lack of good food, difficult and unfair men to deal with, and a surfeit of illnesses that flowed from house to house.

He was nothing if not adaptable.

The two half blood savages live a more bare and hard life than he is used to, but Castiel works hard, skinning the rabbits that Dean brings to him, lighting fires, gathering wood and cleaning their home. He helps Sam as best he can, washes in freezing ponds when he absolutely must.

At night they sleep together under their skins, and Castiel, who has never had to share a bed, being an only child, quickly grows to appreciate the warm weight of Dean and Sam in bed – protectors and companions both.

Castiel's hair has started to grow back, a fine dusting of silken threads between the uneven clumps left by his captors. He wears Dean's old clothes and spends his days maintaining their home, or lying with Dean in their bed, hiding from the cold.

Dean is a strange new presence in his life. As much as Castiel has never had a family, being born to a widow in a ditch just outside of a nowhere village. He had no siblings, his mother died within moments of his birth, and it was only a distant relatives charity that had saved him from death.

But more than that – he has never had a sweetheart. Never taken a lover – it would have been a scandalous, unseemly thing, in such a small and pious village. He had not been inundated with offers as it was, from either farmers daughters, or the young girls of the wealthier families. Truth be told, and this is a truth that lay deep down in his soul – Castiel had no interest in women, or marriage. He had a modest temperament, a naturally docile spirit, and he did not understand the way the blacksmiths boys carried on about their girls, about the ones that wanted, the ones they'd had, the ones they would never stoop to courting.

He had never shared a bed with a woman, never been touched by one amorously, and he had always assumed that he would live out his days in someone else's side room. Unmarried, content with his lot as a hired hand.

But Dean. Dean had stolen him from the jaws of death, and now seemed secure in the idea that Castiel was his. His mate.

The idea scared Castiel, scared him more than death had. This was a complete unknown, an idea only hinted at in the lowest, most scandalised whispers in the dead of night, while the gossips gathered by the fire. That men could be with other men.

It was a cold weight in his stomach whenever Dean touched him.

Still, they live in an uneasy balance, and Castiel tries to pretend that Dean is just a cherished pet, even if he has to acknowledge Dean's authority over both himself and Sam.

The day Dean attempts to move on him, changes all of that.

Sam is away, on a trip to gather firewood and winter provisions – wild roots and herbs to make soup and stew with. Castiel is lying on the furs, his clothes drying on a shaky wooden rack by the cave's opening. He has only two sets, and one is wet the other rent down the centre from an altercation with a thorny bush.

Castiel had wrapped himself in a blanket when he'd lain down to sleep, and grudgingly allowed Dean to lie at his side. He had given up trying to gain privacy from Dean – the wolf followed him everywhere.

It's only when Dean takes the furs in his jaws and pulls them aside, then starts worrying at the blanket and pulling it away.

Castiel twists, cold and naked.

"Dean, why must you..."

He's pinned to the fur under him in a split second. The moment the furry bulk hits his back he starts to struggle, but Dean nips at the back of his neck and growls softly, and Castiel forces himself to freeze. Apparently satisfied with Castiel's submission, Dean wriggles against him and Castiel shivers.

"This isn't right." Castiel says softly. "Dean, get off of me."

Dean growls, and shifts into position, mounting Castiel stubbornly.

"Dean. I'm a man. You can't do this." Castiel's hands curl on the furs. "I'm a man. And I don't know what you are, but...it's not something that can do this to me." His voice is low, soft and scared and trying so hard to be submissive. "No one should do this...I'm a man, this isn't how it works."

Dean whines low in his throat, and his lower body moves against Castiel's, legs trembling and his tail swaying. He bucks, and Castiel bites his lip.

Then Dean is swept aside, in a chorus of growling and snarling.

Castiel rolls over and into a crouch, pulling a blanket around himself. Sam and Dean grapple on the floor, Dean's greater bulk gives him the advantage, and his lips are drawn back in rage, fur standing on end as he pins Sam to the floor.

Sam whines desperately, trying to get free with all his might.

Castiel doesn't even think, he picks up a chunk of the firewood Sam had left scattered by the door, and brings it down against the side of Dean's head, sending the pale gold wolf sprawling on the ground, blood running from his temple.

He turns on Castiel with whip-like speed, snarling and stalking low to the ground. Castiel drops the chunk of firewood and backs away, legs shaking with fear.

Sam sits up and howls pitifully, padding up to lie down between Dean and Castiel, belly in the air.

Dean growls at him.

Sam whines, and then his body ripples, till he's lying on the floor, in human form.

"Dean I'm sorry, I'm so sorry...I couldn't let you hurt him."

Dean looks down at him, gleaming white teeth still bared.

Castiel comes forwards, dropping his blanket in the process, he steps around Sam and kneels by Dean, reaching out gently to touch the quivering and ferocious curve of Dean's spine.

"I'm sorry." He whispers.

Dean slowly subsides, his fury blunting it's edge in their contrition. He sits down, and after a few seconds he starts to whine, and lays his head on Castiel's leg, looking up at him and expectantly turning his head to allow Castiel to clean his wound.

Castiel fetches water and wraps a blanket around himself again, before he cleans Dean's head gently.

_Sam makes sure to stay well away from Castiel, and he offers Dean the whole rabbit that he cooks for dinner, sacrificing his own portion. Though Dean shares his food in the end, he seems appeased._

_Sam is glad. _

_Still, he knows their troubles are just beginning. _


	6. Chapter 6

**Sorry for the lack of updates – ideas for this one have started to trickle through.**

**You can still buy both of my novels on amazon for a kindle device, or computer or phone, or as a paperback from lulu(.com). Links in my profile **

_In the wake of Dean's latest move on Castiel, the most brazen yet, unease fills their little camp. Sam knows that Dean is, for the moment at least, newly chastened by Castiel's appalled reaction to his attempt at claiming him, physically, as a mate. Still, Sam is also aware that Dean is still very much the alpha of their little group – and that as such, Dean would see nothing wrong with forcing Castiel to do whatever he wanted him to do._

_He could only hope that any humanity left in Dean would balk at the notion._

_Castiel was also changed by the attempt at mating. He seemed now more aware of the danger he was in, of the confused web of emotion and desire that Dean had knotted around him the night the wolf had discovered him in the woods. Sam had noticed that for the past few days, Castiel had tried to stay away from Dean (an impossible task, as Dean was incredibly insistent on following him everywhere) Castiel had also started sleeping in his clothes, did not in fact seem to remove them at all – choosing to wash inside his shirt. Even when he needed to relive himself, he would wait until Sam ventured outside, and go with him to do so. In short, he was doing everything possible to remain covered in Dean's presence, and to never be alone with the wolf when it wasn't avoidable._

_Sam pitied him, and he pitied his brother, who did not seem to know what was happening._

_Sam wondered if Dean had desired men before, back when he was human. Sam remembers his brother being sullen in the presence of others, but then, Dean had had a harsh childhood, and was very aware of his native blood, that made him an outcast amongst the settlers. Sam had always been enamoured with their culture – especially their books, paper and ink, and the glass instruments used by their apothecaries. But Dean had remained separate, and had hated their ways – the manners, the pointlessly modest modes of dress, the constricting formalities of their culture. _

_He can't remember Dean ever having a sweetheart. He'd assumed that his brother found loose women in the towns that they traded furs in – now though, he wasn't so sure. _

_Perhaps Dean had never understood the difference between himself and regular men. Had seen it only as further proof that he would never be accepted by them – a half-blood son of a native, with no place in his heart for a woman._

_Sam hoped most emphatically that Dean had realised the difference that nature had cruelly spliced into his flesh – before he had changed, permanently, into his wolf form. Sam could not imagine how confused, how woefully unprepared an animal would be, to deal with such a realisation as this – that Dean was a man, who craved the bodies of other men, the way most craved feminine flesh._

_It was not in his power to force Dean to take human form again, and confront this difficulty head on. But, he could not leave it to chance, and have Castiel attacked again. Despite himself, he had grown to like the slight man who had stumbled into their lives – he had underestimated how strong he was, both in body and in spirit. _

_Castiel bore Dean's affections as a trial, and he did so without complaint. He had coped with their hard life, with the demands that their routine placed on him...and, at times, Sam suspected that Castiel even cared for them a little. He tended to Sam's cuts and scrapes with a kind of tenderness, and, despite his apparent horror of Dean's physical attention, Castiel still curled up around the wolf to sleep._

_So it was that Sam considered his plan of action, and finally put it into effect._

_Whilst Dean might not be able to talk to him – Sam could pray that he would at least still understand. _

Dean first notices that Sam is trying to get his attention when a hunk of cold rabbit is dropped under his nose.

He looks at his brother, questioningly. It's not time to eat yet.

Sam, person Sam, just points at the rabbit, and tells him that it's for him.

Dean eats it, but keeps an eye on his mate as he does so.

Cas is always away from him now. Moving too much, scared eyes and scared body all the time. Dean thinks that Cas should be scared – he hit him, Dean should hurt him for that. But the rest of him wishes that Cas wasn't scared.

Sam holds up more rabbit, then walks away.

Dean looks at his mate. Cas puts his arms around his knees, a sign that he isn't going to move.

Dean follows Sam into the cave.

Sam sits down in the little dark room at the back of the cave. It smells like old food, it's storage. Dean sits down in front of Sam, growling, nose up in the air, waiting for the food.

Sam gives it to him.

Dean holds it between his paws and rips pieces of rabbit away, chewing.

Sam is saying something.

Dean looks up at his brother, who sighs, and repeats. "I want to talk to you."

Dean goes back to his rabbit.

"Dean?"

He snorts, to show he's listening.

"It's about Castiel."

Cas. What about Cas?

"What you did to him, the other day? You can't do that again."

At the word 'can't' Dean growls warningly. He's the one in charge here. But, the part of his brain that is working out Sam's words isn't so sure – it doesn't really want to do that to Cas again...except that it does...but...different.

"I know. You can do what you want...but Castiel is human. And right now...you aren't."

Dean huffs. He knows this, he is not stupid.

"Castiel is scared. Because you hurt him. You tried..." Sam wets his lips, looking for a word small enough. "You tried to make him lie with you."

Dean is silent, and the part of his brain that understands, also makes his stomach twist, the rabbit not feeling as good as it should.

"_Castiel is a man. He's...he comes from a village. From settlers. He knows that it is wrong to lie with another man." Sam explains patiently, hoping that he's getting through to his brother. "And, there are words, in their rules, that say men cannot lie with men. Words that say they cannot lie with animals."_

_Dean does something unexpected then. He lies down, puts his nose on his paws, and his tail flops onto the ground. _

_He looks for all the world...sad. _

_Sam cautiously continues._

"_You have been a wolf, for a long time. But, if you want Castiel to stay...you need to show him that you are a man. That you understand him. That you won't hurt him. I need to know that you won't hurt him."_

_Dean whines, low in his throat. Sam understands – Dean doesn't want to hurt Castiel._

_Now comes the difficult part._

"_I think...you want Castiel, the way men want their wives. The way our father was with our mother. I think...you are a man, who desires men."_

_Dean doesn't respond._

_Sam presses on._

"_Our lives are...wrong. To the settlers, to our father's people. But...you would never be wrong to me. I will love you. Despite this. You are my brother. My pack...and I would never leave you."_

_Dean creeps forwards on his belly, an uncharacteristic gesture, and licks Sam's hand with the tip of his tongue. _

_Sam combs his fingers gently over the curve of Dean's ear. _

_Inwardly, Sam burns with sadness. Sorrow that his brother will not, cannot, speak to him. A tender sadness for their stunted lives. For the horror that had been visited on them. _

_He pushes it away. He has a task to go about, and he will do so, whilst the time is right. _

"_If you want him...and if Castiel wants to be with you...in that way. Which...he may not. Then you must be human...and you must be careful._

_Again Dean looks confused. _

"_The way a man is with a man...it is different to how it would work, with a woman. Or so I have come to understand." _

_Sam had thought of it, turned the idea over in his mind as he fretted for Castiel's safety. He knows that there is only one way that two male bodies could come together carnally, as men and women do._

_Although the thought gives him no small measure of malaise, he has to make sure that Dean understands the hurt he could do to Castiel by accident. _

"_There's a way...but..." Here, Sam's nerve deserts him. He picks up a stick from the ground, and scratches in the dirt. "Here - like this." He points out parts of his quick drawing, watching Dean for signs of understanding._

_Dean noses at the dirt lines._

_Sam draws again, speaking aloud, shying away from the more graphic language that it would perhaps be prudent to use. _

_Finally, Dean cocks his head to one side, and it seems that he understands._

Dean watches Sam scratch at the dirt. Thinks that maybe he's writing. But, there are no words, only pictures. And he doesn't understand what they are. Even Sam seems to be having trouble telling him what he means.

It's a shameful thing for him. Dean picks up on this. Something shameful...

Sam eventually uses a word, two words, that Dean understands – he understands all words, well, most. But these words make the meaning of his brother quite clear. Words that it pinkens Sam's cheeks to use.

Watching, he finally understands, and is...changed, by the lines on the ground.

Here is the way that he can be with Cas – that he can make him his, the way even his Sam-knowing brain wants to.

It scares him. Like the first time he changed. New, different, almost unnatural.

But, it's possible.

And Dean had learnt that, what is possible – is what is natural.


	7. Chapter 7

**Sorry for the lack of updates – ideas for this one have started to trickle through.**

**You can still buy both of my novels on amazon for a kindle device, or computer or phone, or as a paperback from lulu(.com). Links in my profile **

_It starts as a twinge under Sam's skin._

_He's been restless for a while, looking out at the smoky, smudgy ghosts of chimneys over the settler camps. _ He can hear them when the wind blows strongly – the market sellers calling, women and children chattering. He smells the sea, their roasting meat.

Now that he spends most of his time in human form, he has started to dream of things that he has wanted for a long time, with new clarity: paper, ink, pens, books, proper clothes, a bed, plates and spoons. He has seen all of these things on his brief visits to the settler camps. But now he wants them, with a kind of ache that even the deepest winter hunger pangs cannot equal. He wants a bed of his own, and a fireplace with a copper kettle on it. He wants to read books and learn things, all the languages that the settlers speak, medicine, the ways in which they govern themselves.

And more than that, more than he craves that civilisation, the company of other people and their ways of life – he dreams of having a wife, of producing children, raising them.

Since Castiel came to them, since Dean took ownership of him, Sam has watched them, and felt a foreign sting of jealousy.

Dean is the eldest, and the alpha, and now he has a mate.

But it is Sam who can have children, should he find a woman willing. And it is he who is out in the cold now. Figuratively. In reality, Sam is quite glad for his brother's lack of modesty. For he is still consent to share a bed, even with Castiel in their home. But, Sam longs for something other than loyalty, fraternity and acceptance. He wants love.

Only knowing that Dean and Castiel need him holds him back.

There are fears in him as well, that help to dampen his longing. The fear that he will produce a litter of pups, and be executed as a witch, or demon in human form. He fears leaving his brother, and the only life he has ever known, for hardship, and uncertainty.

But he cannot deny the prickling under his skin.

And when the call comes, there is no ignoring it.

Fourteen full days after he spoke with Dean on the nature of his relationship with Castiel, Sam sits and the mouth of their cave, skinning a rabbit, their first in days. He changes into a wolf afterwards, the better to clean the blood from himself. That is when he smells it, a scent stronger than those of the settlers, stronger than the forest odour, even than that of the blood on his paws.

It's indescribable, and yet, something akin to the way their mother and father would smell, when they had been away for a long time, and Sam's heart had ached with want of them. This scent is one of longing, of impending relief, and almost immediately Sam feels drunk with it.

He snaps out of his daze only when something pinches his tail.

He turns to find Dean snorting a few of Sam's own tail hairs off of his nose, onto the ground. Sam whimpers questioningly.

Dean hasn't looked this grave in a long time.

He looks past Sam and out towards the horizon, then steps forwards and nudges Sam towards the mouth of the cave, pushing him on his way.

Sam's whimpers grow in volume. Dean growls, and shoves, hard, sending Sam sprawling.

Sam looks up into his brother's eyes. There is no mistaking the message there. "Go. Just, Go." It is not unkind, but it is insistant. Dean himself knows the power of the mating call, and he does not expect Sam to resist it, anymore than Sam had expected Dean to simply grow tired of Castiel.

They stand and stare at each other for a long while, the wind from the cave mouth stirring their fur. Dean does not blink, but, after a while, he steps forwards, trotting across the gap between them to press his muzzle alongside Sam's, and huff warm air into his fur, his eyes closed. Sam whines his own goodbye, and changes forms, wrapping his arms around Dean tightly, but still unable to utter a single word.

He dresses and takes a bundle of his things. There's no time to wait, with the imperative of the call running through him, still, he finds time to wake Castiel and explain to him what is happening.

Castiel looks appalled.

"You cannot leave me." He hisses, looking across the cave, to where Dean sits stiffly. "You are the one who pressed me to stay, knowing what would happen to me..."

"I had no way of knowing that Dean would..."

"And now you want to leave?" Castiel's face betrays his fear, and his disgust. "What will become of me?"

Sam lets out a slow breath. "That...is not something I can concern myself with. I feel responsible for you, and I've tried to make Dean understand...but you have to understand us. The way this works for us...it's not like how it is for your people. Our mate calls, and we go. We have to. I could no more stay here than you could walk across the ocean. It would go against all of nature's rules."

Castiel's hollow eyes beseech him.

"And when he rapes me...where will nature's rules be? Shall they be satisfied? Or do you think they shall require me to suffer more?"

Sam turns his face from the harsh words, but, when his eyes flick to Dean, he finds that his brother is as still as stone.

"I wish I'd hanged." Castiel murmurs softly.

"And I wish my mother had lived, and my father too – so that my brother would not have been so reduced, that you could fail to see the good in him." Sam hisses. "Nature is cruel, and it does not listen to prayers or pleas. You have to save yourself." Feeling the harsh snap of his words, Sam gentles his voice. "The bond between you and Dean is strong, and private...and he will not tolerate my interferences for long. I have done all I can with him – but you...you I have to encourage, because it is you who has to reach into him, and find wherever my brother is hiding."

Castiel looks at him, betrayed, and deeply afraid. "And if there's nothing there to find?"

Sam simply gazes at him.

"I know my brother. He is in there, somewhere. And he wishes you no harm." He looks away, feeling again the call inside of him. "I have to go now, I'm sorry. But please, please – do not abandon him. I'll come back in twenty days – and I will find you, whatever has happened, and help you, though I hope there will be no need."

Sam picks up his bundle and sets his eyes once more on the horizon.

He hopes that nothing terrible will happen, but he cannot stay to insure that it won't. Sam looks up to catch his brother's eye, to assure him that he will return, to ask that he keep from harming Castiel, to make sure that he remembers that Sam tried to teach him

But Dean is not by the cave mouth.

Even as an animal, Sam thinks, Dean cannot stand to watch his brother walk away from him.


	8. Chapter 8

**Sorry for the lack of updates – Uni work, etc etc. **

**An Important notification. You've probably seen this on tumblr, but, basically, it's a collection for a seriously ill woman, who desperately needs surgery. I've donated, and I thought I'd share the info here, as my tumblr isn't widely followed. This post has the donate link, and links to more information. ht tp:/ alovething. /post/16455169397/ i-am-sorry-my-fandom-love-is-on-hold-for-tonight-my**

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Castiel listens to Sam's footsteps as they descend the cliff path, and patter out of earshot.

The day is chill, and he pulls a fur around his shoulders, covering the rough homespun shirt with it, and casting nervous eyes to the shadows of the cave, aware that Dean might be anywhere.

But Dean does not appear.

Castiel eventually stirs himself from his bed. He goes to stand at the cave mouth, looking down into the wintry forest and the stark white sky. He could run, he knows this. But run to where? His own people would see him hanged, and in another settlement he would always be at risk. Traders travelled, and they brought news and gossip with them. Sooner or later someone would talk of a man with dark hair, with blue eyes, who had ensorcelled a village and escaped by calling up a pack of natives.

A dark doubt had begun to form in Castiel's mind in any case. He had never believed in witchcraft, or in demons, he had seen evil only in people. Nature was not good or evil, kind or cruel. It simply was, and he had lived his life in this belief. But now he found himself in the company of men, who could change into wolves. And there was something in him that drew Dean on, towards him.

Could it be that his people were right? That there was something...wrong, in him?

And if so, could he stand to seek out decent folk, and try to make his way with them?

Castiel shivered.

No, running would only end in his death – whether in the woods, at the hands of nature. Or in the town, at the hands of men.

He did not stop to wonder why he did not believe that Dean would kill him. If Castiel considered Dean's input into his escape, he only imagined the wolf forcing him to return to the cave. There was a certainty in his gut that Dean would never hurt him, never kill him. A certainty that the rational part of his mind had yet to embrace, as he still feared a kind of injury from Dean, that every aspect of his former life had taught him to hold in terror. The violent, carnal advances of another man.

Eventually he stirred himself and retreated into the cave. He set a fair going, fashioning it from dried sticks that snapped and flared to life. He boiled water and added dried shavings from a small tin, that Sam had always used to make a sharp drink. There was work to be done, and Castiel sipped his hot beaker as he swept the cave with a rudimentary broom, and shook the furs out.

There was still no sign of Dean, so Castiel checked their supplies and found a rabbit hanging. He skinned it and prepared the meet in a hot pot, searing it before adding water and herbs. At the back of his mind, something told him that Dean would appreciate the comfort of this familiar, nourishing food, in the face of his loss.

Castiel had not lost a brother before. He'd never really had any family to lose. But he had experienced a kind of social loss, as he's left one family after another over the years, with nothing and no one to call his own. Until finally, he had been accused and cast out.

But Dean did not appear when the food was ready, and when Castiel searched for him, he could find no sign of him in the cave.

He wasn't sure what to do. Sam had stressed the importance of allowing Dean first taste of all food, as well as the best place in their bed, and the warmest seat by the fire. Dean was an 'alpha' and that meant he was something of animal royalty. Castiel stood in indecision for a while, his stomach riotous with hunger, before replacing the lid on the cook pot, and drawing some skins around him to keep warm.

He did not want to examine the impulse that led him to wait on a wolf's whims while he sat hungry, and so he did not. Neither did he allow himself to think about what might happen to him should Dean return.

Or if he should not.

The thought struck him like a stone between the eyes. Perhaps Dean had abandoned him, had gone to follow Sam, or to shun all people forever. Without Dean, Castiel knew he would perish. He could not survive alone.

It was a thought that brought him up short.

He could trap rabbits, and find good food in the forest. Now that he had warm clothes and shelter, he really did not need the half-breed wolf-men anymore.

Still, he knew that he would die without Dean.

Just as surely as he knew he would die without food, or air.

Castiel took up his mending, the shirt and breechclout of Dean's that had become his, and that he had accidently ripped. His fingers were clumsy with the needle, it was woman's work, and his knowledge of sewing was limited to wounds and leatherwork. But he managed, though his hands became increasingly unsteady as darkness drew in, isolating him in the round gold coin of the fire's light.

Dean had still not returned.

Castiel felt his eyes burn, and moved from the fire a little. Though he was used to smoke and terrible lighting, he had lived his life in the reek of tallow candles and damp smoke holes. He refused to link the burning in his eyes with the tightening of his chest.

He could not, he found to his consternation, remember a time that he had been without Dean, since his rescue from the woods. Always Dean had been with him, like a shadow. Even when Castiel had stubbornly trailed Sam so as not to be vulnerable to attack.

A scrabbling forced Castiel from his reverie, and he looked out into the dark, jumping as he spotted the reflective eyes of a wolf. Dean came from the darkness, dropping a hare at the fireside and going to the far side of the fire, to slump on the stone floor.

Castiel looked at the hare, unsure what he should do. He was saved from his quandary when Dean sniffed and raised his head, eyeing the stew pot with interest.

"I made dinner." Castiel says, feeling foolish without knowing why. Perhaps it is because without Sam in residence, he is faced with the ridiculousness of addressing himself solely to an animal.

He takes the lid off of the pot, and carefully ladles a portion into a clay bowl. He had forgotten that Dean took his meat raw, and seldom ate proper meals with them. Castiel sets the bowl of steaming stew by Dean, and takes his seat once more.

Dean is watching him as though puzzled by everything that he does, but, after a long, long moment of consideration, the wolf begins to lap at the broth. About halfway through the bowl, he looks up, muzzle wet with stock, and looks at Castiel, then at the pot. It is only then that Castiel dolls out food for himself.

Once they have eaten, Dean leaves the circle of the fire's glow, and retreats to the icy cave mouth, to look out at the forest. Castiel prepares a bed with the aired furs, and stands by it, remembering that it is Dean who usually took the initiative as to where they should sleep.

But Dean remained at the cave mouth, and didn't seem to notice that Castiel was cold, and tired. So, he slid between the furs, and tried to ignore the ache in his chest, and the burning in his eyes, that had little to do with the banked down fire.

The night moved on ponderously, like a crow in flight, gliding on an air current.

Castiel could not sleep. He was cold, and could not find a comfortable way to lie and rest his head on the furs. His eyes strayed, without his permission, to where Dean lay by the cave mouth, his pale fur visible in the almost pitch black, ruffled and snatched at by the wind. Castiel can hear rain spattering on the stone, and the wind almost howls out in the dark.

"Dean." He calls, without thinking.

The wolf doesn't move.

Castiel clutches at his courage like a handful of wet clay. "Dean...it's cold. Come and sleep."

Still, Dean does not move from the cave mouth.

A high pitched, long, terrible sound issues from the darkness, and Castiel realises that it is Dean. A lone wolf call that makes the hair on Castiel's neck stand up, and his eyes well and his innards shiver – until it becomes unendurable.

He stands up, dragging a clump of furs and blanket with him, he makes his way to the cave mouth. The floor is slick with rain, and the chill of the wind is terrible, but not so terrible as the heart-sore howl issuing from Dean's mouth.

Castiel touches Dean lightly, and the howl dies into a soft whimper, bitten off in a whuff. Dean lies down, as if exhausted, too tired to fight or take umbrage at Castiel's intervention. Castiel puts the coverings over Dean, spreading them carefully before sliding in and curling up. The chill is formidable, but Dean's fur is warm, if speckled with rain. The wolf's body is loose and limp, and Castiel can feel Dean's despair, his loneliness, more sharply than if Dean had a human tongue to utter such sentiments.

He lays his arm over the wolf's bulk, and listens to Dean breathe.

Both of them, are asleep within heartbeats.

_Until the 27__th__ of January, my novel 'Me and Mine' is FREE from the Amazon kindle store (in all territories). It's a special promotion, and I really hope to see some reviews and recommendations of it - but, what I'd love even more is for new people to get to read my book. _


	9. Chapter 9

**Sorry for the lack of updates – Uni work, etc etc. **

Dean's aloofness continues for a further eight days, and Castiel, despite his better nature, is almost mad with loneliness by the end of the second.

He had not realised until then, just how much he had valued Sam's company. During his time at the settlement, kept prisoner and tried as a witch, he had seen very few people, save those that came to interrogate him, shaving his hair, prodding him with sharp instruments to search out the devils mark – cutting him or striking him when he winced or tried to fight them. And out in the loneliness of the forest, there had been only Sam to converse with. Limited thought their conversation had been, it was valuable as fresh water on a long, starved voyage.

Now Castiel had only Dean, and Dean did not speak, did not even look at him.

Castiel watched for three days as Dean disappeared from the cave, going out into the woods to do God knew what, leaving Castiel alone.

At night, Dean lay down at the cave entrance, leaving it up to Castiel to crawl from his bed, where he might have been for hours after darkness, waiting for Dean's return. Dean showed no sign of acknowledgement when Castiel came to him, bringing furs to cover them both, like a maiden going to her marriage bed.

He cooked food for himself and for Dean, not daring to touch the food until Dean was there to take the first serving. Dean no longer brought rabbits or hares, having seemingly either exhausted his supply, or run out of the will to hunt. Castiel made do with vegetation and dry stores. But these were not plentiful. His body felt practically starved, and Dean did not look much better. The cold seemed keen to whittle them down to their bones.

At night, in the exposed mouth of the cave, Castiel curled up, trying to keep himself warm and covered by the blankets and furs. Dean always found a place, curled against his chest, limp and warm, fidgeting in his sleep and whimpering if Castiel moved far from him. It was only in those moments that Castiel could believe that Dean recognised his presence. The rest of the time, he merely pined for Sam.

By the ninth day, Castiel is tired – tired of being ignored, of being cold and hungry and alone all day, with nothing to do and no one to talk to.

He takes his bed, such as it is, to the room at the very back of the cave, and makes space for himself to sleep in the relative warmth. As the sun dies down, he eats some thin herb and root broth, and sets himself down to sleep.

He wakes some time later, to the sound of frantic yipping.

It reminds him of a dog bothered by its chain, or one of the strays that the village boys had tormented with sticks and strings of clacking nutshells.

He sits up, feeling the night's knife-like cold on his skin.

The yipping comes in bursts, changing direction, but never getting closer. Fear traces a figner of ice down Castiel's spine.

"Dean?" He calls out into the dark, a dark so intense that it blots out the sight of his own fingers not an inch from his face.

A sharp bark snaps through the cave, and he hears clawed feet tapping on the rock, scraping in their furious hurry.

A bundle of heavy, wriggling fur strikes him in the chest, sending Castiel sprawling to the ground. His heart leaps into his mouth, Dean is angry with him for disobeying the non-verbal understanding that they have developed. He must be furious over the insubordination, the usurping of his seat as alpha.

Castiel brings his shaking hands up to shield himself, at the same times as a hot tongue laves his face, and a wet nose nuzzles under his chin. Dean whimpers against his skin, body constantly shifting and wiggling in an attempt to get closer.

Castiel's fear over Dean's anger evaporates – the wolf is not enraged.

He's relieved.

Castiel puts his arms around Dean and presses his face into the fur on top of his head. Dean whimpers, his ears hanging down in sorrow, his body quaking under its coating of fur.

"Did you think I had left you?" Castiel murmurs.

The wolf redoubles it's panicked movements, and Castiel shushes him and strokes his hand over Dean's nose.

"I'm not going to leave...I was just tired. It's too cold for me to sleep out there again."

Dean noses him sorrowfully and climbs down from his lap, onto the makeshift bed, lying down and looking up at Castiel with reflective eyes, like he's waiting to see if his gesture has been accepted.

Castiel sighs and lies back down, letting Dean tuck himself up against his body before he drags the covers back over himself.

In the warm, soft little cave, Castiel runs one of Dean's ears through his fingers absentmindedly, and Dean wriggles with delight.

"I'm sorry." Castiel says, the words leaving his mouth as soon as he thinks them.

Dean stills.

"I shouldn't have let this happen, you imagining my departure...I won't let it happen again...but..." he says, after a short pause. "I need you. Not just...to bring food, or to let me stay here...but, I need you, so that I am not alone. Without...people, I will lose whatever civility I have, and then my sanity."

Dean makes no comment, but moves closer to Castiel anyway.

Castiel sighs.

"Is that why you remain...changed, like this? So that you do not want for human company?" Castiel muses mostly to himself. It may be his imagination, but he thinks he hears Dean huff derisively.

"I suppose you can't tell me why." Castiel transfers his attention to the other ear, stroking the soft fur. "But...I'm not a fool, I know there's a reason, something that Sam hasn't yet guessed at."

Dean tilts his head and nips at Castiel's fingers lightly.

"I don't even know why I would wish to know." Castiel sighs. "I just know that...I do. And Sam...is under the impression that you and I...that we..." He can't quite say it. Saying it, voicing it aloud, even to Dean's dubious intelligence, makes it real. Something he is not prepared to do, not now, not ever.

Dean growls quietly.

"I know." Castiel mutters. "I know you think this...that my being here means that I'm..." he struggles, "_yours, _but..."

Where should he begin?

That life is not as simple as claiming what you want, and keeping it for yourself?

That there are rules, laws of God and man that make this impossible, unthinkable?

That he doesn't _want _this. Has never wanted this?

That Dean isn't even the same species as him? That Castiel has no way of knowing if there's anything human left in him beside...some residual understanding?

All of this passes through his mind, and Castiel knows that all of it is true. But there is something else as well, something he had not even spoken of to Sam, and that is what escapes him.

"...but I have nothing, nothing for you, and...I am not a mate; I've never been, to anyone. And...I'm nothing worth keeping – if that's what you want."

He's never spoken like this before, hardly dared think like it, but he's half convinced that Dean can't even understand him. It's safer here, than it has ever been for him, to admit that he has no idea what the other men are so interested in when they talk about women. They were people, just like himself, with their jobs to do, and their preoccupations with linens and the habits of their households. He had never seen the attraction, or rather, he had never seen why such an intense...fixation had developed in his male peers.

He knows that there are some...men, if they were worthy of the term, who had found...a similar attraction, between themselves and other men. But, Castiel had never allowed such thoughts to cross his mind. He was as puritan in his imaginings as he was in his daily life, and he kept his conscience clean.

There was a part of him, that had looked on the few naked men he had encountered, with something approaching...longing. But that part was so deeply buried that Castiel knew almost nothing of its existence, save the few moments when in uncoiled in sleep, and inflamed his dreams.

At first, Castiel, lost in the silence that greets his words, is ready to sleep, knowing that Dean has nothing to say, or at least no way to say it.

Then Dean moves, uncoiling himself and standing with a whuff of discontent. Castiel tenses, aware that he may have angered Dean with his rejection. The wolf however, does not growl, or bare his teeth, instead he picks his way over Castiel, until he has his legs planted on either side of Castiel's torso, his face hovering in the dark over Castiel's as the wolf lies down on his chest. He touches the soft, barely furred part of his muzzle, his lips were he to return to his human form, to Castiel's own lips.

Castiel almost fails to breathe.

Dean tucks his muzzle gently under his chin, and stays on top of him, a weight that Castiel cannot ignore. He reaches up and tentatively rests his hands on Dean's back, feeling his fingers sift through the coarse outer coat, anchoring themselves in the soft fur underneath.

Dean breathes out, and it almost seems like a sigh.


	10. Chapter 10

**This is sort of the second half of the last chapter, I had it planned for chapter ten, so that I'd go into double figures on the first 'bit of the plot' – so, the next few updates will introduce some new elements **

Dean feels warm and comfortable for the first time in days, heavy with sleep. There's hunger in his belly, but he pushes it aside, Castiel has food ready for the morning, he knows that. There's no desperation to the hunger, no edge of starvation.

Dean's starved before.

When he was hunting the man that killed his parents, he'd gone without food for days. He'd slept in icy hollows and under thin coverings of greenery with an aching stomach, cuts and scrapes oozing through his fur. He knew about pain, loss and deprivation. Nature had taught him from an early age.

Castiel's rejection had been an entirely new smart, and Dean had felt its sting intensely. Now though, lying in the warm, with Castiel sleeping beneath him, and his arms resting on Dean's back. Dean felt...better, _bonded, _and...safe.

He hadn't felt that way since before his father died.

Dean's eyes are closed, his nose twitching as he dozes, soaking up the scents of his surroundings as his ears map out the area around himself and Castiel.

_Wind, rain, trees rattling..._

_Earth, stone, cooking, herbs, roots..._

_Castiel, breathing..._

_Old fur, musty, sweat and skin, sleep..._

_Castiel, warm skin, hair, sweat...mate..._

_An owl hooting, fox call, sticks snapping..._

_Castiel, whimpering..._

Dean starts to wake up at that. Castiel is making a new noise, not a noise of speaking, or one of fear. Not even his regular, deep sounds of sleep. This is a sound Dean has not heard from him before, but somehow...it's also familiar.

A long, soft...sound. And Castiel's body moves a little, sleeping, but not soundly. Dean resting on top of the sleeping man, pricks his ears up and opens his eyes a little. Castiel's body is warmer than it should be, and...

Dean shivers, from his twitching nose to his wriggling tail.

The smell. The mate smell, intoxicating as it normally is, is ten times as strong now. Deep and dark and rich as autumn soil.

Dean whines quietly, and Castiel makes the sound again, almost a growl, his body twitching.

Dean feels it then, the strange, familiar _pull_ like...almost like he's been here before. Castiel's body moves again, and Dean feels him rubbing against the soft fur of his belly. Only, it's a kind of touch that's new. The touch of...Dean realises, and his blood drowns out the sound of leaves and rain and...everything but Castiel's breathing, and the sounds, which come quicker now.

This is a human thing...a...mating thing, that Dean remembers, that he's felt and experienced himself. Castiel is...Castiel is ready, accepting him, wanting him. There's no fear in the air, only warmth and the scent of Castiel's body. The scent of wanting.

But...there's something wrong with it. With _him. _Dean realises, in a creeping of his skin, as Castiel's body rises against his, the heat, the pressing of him intensifying. Dean wants Castiel...but more than that...he wants...

It's hard to remember, to think how he used to...but Dean realises what he wants, what he craves right now.

Hands.

He needs, hands, and...lips and skin, and...he needs arms and fingers and an organ to match Castiel's own.

He needs _himself. _The self he buried like unneeded clothes, frozen under the soil of his own winter.

It's as Dean stiffens with impotent desire, frozen in the wrong body, the wrong mind, a shudder going through him – the half forgotten _change _prickling his skin– that Castiel wakes up.

One moment, he's sleeping, heavy with heat and shuddery breaths of pleasure, his lower body half shucked of loose clothing, indulging in its meeting with the soft, warm fur of a living body. The next, he is abruptly awake, his fear a stench in the air, throwing Dean off of himself, dragging himself from the covers, breeches lost in the tangle of skins and blankets, baggy shirt covering his shameful arousal.

He skitters backwards onto the cold stone, leaving Dean sprawled on the cave floor.

Castiel's skin is warm, shuddering in the cold, his stomach heavy with unfulfilled wanting, the ache between his legs almost as torturous as his own shame. He can barely remember the dream. Had there been a dream? Or just the feeling of the body on him, Dean's body.

The body of an animal.

Castiel feels sick, and his chest feels tight. He is foul. A foul, disgusting creature, with a black soul.

It takes him a moment to look through his burning eyes, and catch a glimpse of Dean on the floor. Fresh fear leaps into his chest.

Dean is...writhing, legs twitching on the ground, his body jerking roughly every few seconds. His eyes are wide open, mostly white and terrified, his teeth bare themselves, and a horrible, pained sound rips its way out of his throat.

Castiel is frozen, wanting to dive forwards and help, powerless to do anything.

He hears Dean's bones crack, sees sinew rip beneath the surface, and all at once, Dean goes limp, like a child's marionette with cut strings. Then his body begins to grow longer, and Dean's throat produces agonised _screams _animalistic and terrified, until a wet _snick _cuts off the sound.

But Dean's mouth is still screaming, jaws open, eyes staring.

His legs elongate, paws forming hands and feet with awful cracking, snapping sounds, his body warps and twists until he has a chest and neck and hips – the fur and thick wolf skin underneath flaking away.

Castiel had seen Sam's transformations, and they were...almost effortless, but this...this looks like torture and birth, and a gruesome death all at once. As if Dean's wolf body had grown over him like...flesh growing over a spur of wood stabbed through a man's chest. And now it was being spliced open, flayed away to reveal the man underneath.

The screaming begins again, mangled and gargling as Dean's voice grows in his throat, human and in complete agony. He shakes and sobs and finally goes still as his skin stops boiling, and his limbs stop jerking. Left in a heap on the cold, unfeeling stone.

But he does not go quiet, and his pained whimpers are too much to bear when uttered in a human tongue.

Castiel drags himself forwards, and reaches fearfully for Dean's arm, touching the skin, rubbing gently. Sam had complained of a cramping of his muscles when he had transformed after a long period of change, Dean's body was...in a kind of shock, he presumed. His muscles knotted and abused by the change.

Castiel rubbed Dean's arms until he felt the muscles give, then moved his fingers to his torso. His hands froze when it came time to move lower, and he had to force himself to still his own shame at touching a naked man this way. He would be as a doctor or a mother nursing her son. He would not allow his baser self to slip his grasp. His arousal had faded quickly, and Castiel strives to forget that it ever existed.

He tends to Dean's knotted muscles, and then shuffles back a little, satisfied now that Dean no longer seems pained, but rather...almost insensible with exhaustion. He picks up a fur, and almost drops it again when a clumsy hand paws at his arm.

He looks down at Dean is surprise, finding the man looking up at him.

"Cas..." Dean gasps, fighting to escape the grip of exhaustion.

Castiel takes his hand, and tucks the fur over him with the other. He lies down, extending and arm for Dean to lean against.

"Sleep, Dean." He tells him.

It seems that this is all the permission Dean needs, apparently soothed by his presence, his eyelids droop, and he subsides against Castiel's arm in a deep sleep.

Castiel lies awake, and, hours later, in the shallow, pale light of the rising sun he finds that he is still looking down on the newly bared face of the man who saved his life, and claimed him for a mate.

And he is beautiful.

Castiel, alone, filled with the residual horror of his awakening, and Dean's transformation, shivers and feels a pit of fear open in his stomach.

What is wrong with him? That he is looking on the face of this man, this...face that must be like his own, like any mans, with a nose and mouth and eyes...and yet...he feels...stirred, intimately, in a way almost akin to hunger, to a savage, devouring privation.

He looks again and again, as long as he can stand to look, and still, he cannot find what it is that makes him feel this way. Not the curve of Dean's lips, or the shape of his cheek bones. There is nothing, nothing in his face that should make him feel this way. That should make him feel at all.

And yet, when he tries to, he cannot look away.


	11. Chapter 11

**Have no fear! I have not crossed over to the wincest side, just taking a short vacation, checking out the scenery, sampling the kink buffet. I'm still working on my destiel fics. **

**Also, if you haven't voted in the eonline poll today...sorry, but, this is not for you :P**

When Castiel wakes up, the morning light playing on the cave wall is the first thing he sees. He cannot for the life of him recall ever feeling this way upon waking. But, his very skin seems to hum with the knowledge that this day, this day is going to be a gift. Could it be he's forgotten a celebration? An event? In the fraction of a second before he is fully awake, Castiel decides that this strange, soaring feeling in his stomach, must be what the bride and her groom feel on the day of their wedding.

Then, he turns onto his back, looking away from the white light on the dark stone, and finds himself staring into a pair of green eyes.

Castiel blinks, disturbed to find Dean leaning up beside him, watching him as if it is the most natural thing in the world. Then Dean's hand moves under the coverings that swaddle them both, and Castiel feels it's warm roughness against his belly. His body tenses, and he remembers losing his loose breeches, remembers his own shame at finding himself undone by a simple dream. He remembers the horrific transformation he had witnessed.

"Dean?"

The other man responds, his eyes clearing at Castiel's recognition. The hand on his belly moves to press over his heart, and Castiel feels a bare leg press between his own.

It is only then that he remembers that Dean is naked.

Castiel struggles from the bed as quickly as he can, and, wrapping his arms around himself, he looks down at where Dean is lying, an expression of deep confusion on his face. The blankets and skins around him gape in Castiel's absence, and he finds that he can see all the way down Dean's broad chest, to his deprived stomach, and his sex. A territory that Castiel's eyes devour despite himself.

He turns away, red faced and shamed, and sees the discarded and crumpled woven breeches on the ground. Castiel snatches up the fabric and turns back to Dean with averted eyes. He drops the clump of fabric onto the bed.

"Here, put these on."

When he hears no answering movement, he chances a look, and finds Dean still watching him, the clothing left untouched.

"Do you understand me?" Castiel says, frustration winning out over helplessness.

"Yes."

Castiel very nearly jumps in fright. He contains the impulse, if barely. "Then dress."

"No."

Castiel hesitates, his eyes locked with Dean's, and he is filled with the sudden knowledge that, whatever is about to happen, he has no hope of escaping it.

This does not mean that he doesn't try.

Castiel bolts, quick as a threatened deer, and very nearly makes it past Dean and out into the cave proper. But, he is not fast enough, and no match for the strength of the hands that catch at his waist, hauling him back and down.

Castiel finds his bare legs spread, knees on either side of Dean's own legs, bared by the slipping of the furs. The skins are bunched beneath him, and Castiel is subjected to the rude brush of fur on his backside. His main focus however, is on Dean.

He's unprepared for the assault of sensations when they come, the way Dean presses his mouth to the join in his neck and shoulder, sending an array of sudden feelings through him. Neither does he expect the movement of Dean's hands, pushing the ridiculously oversized shirt up, to elicit such a pleasant reaction. The shirt is so baggy that it hangs off of Castiel's shoulder, and Dean buries his face there, mouth travelling hungrily from throat to shoulder, then lower, laving his collarbone, he chest...until his mouth (deceptively soft for one so strong, for what was once an animal so vicious) embraces the risen nub there. Castiel cannot help the sound that comes from his mouth, a bolt of pleasure, heretofore unexperienced, almost tears him in half. He finds himself pushing Dean's shoulder, trying to escape the feeling, as good as pure sin, as unbearable as torture. Dean resists, and the answering swipe of teeth over the soft flesh in his mouth has Castiel shaking.

He barely notices when Dean pushes him backwards, laying him out on the rumpled furs and holding him there with the weight of his body. His physical excitement is what jolts Castiel from the daze visited on him by lust, and he struggles one more against Dean's bulk.

Dean holds him down without seeming exertion, and Castiel is reminded of how weak he is in comparison. The other man seems completely unaware of his fear, intent instead on pressing the evidence of his disturbing passion to Castiel's own rebellious member.

"I can't..." Castiel gasps, feeling the touch of that intimate flesh on his own, a divine kiss. "I can't, please..."

Later he will think on this, and recall that he did not ask, 'Stop' or demand 'No' neither did he profess his lack of desire.

All he could say was, "I can't", as tears found their way into his eyes, tears of pain as everything he wanted, fought everything he believed was right and good.

It takes a moment for Castiel to realise that Dean is no longer touching him amorously, and still longer to notice the gentle touch of fingers on his wet cheeks.

"Crying." Dean says softly. "Why?"

Castiel breathes, the air filling his chest, in out, in out. But he cannot form words, cannot explain everything that is so very wrong with him. He can't. And the mere thought of Dean moving away from him, hurts like nothing else. But the thought of him continuing to mate him is still more painful.

_Dean looks down at Castiel._

_Castiel's eyes are a colour. It's been a long time since Dean saw colours, anything other than shadows and light. He can't remember the name of it, but he knows it's rare. There are only a few birds of that colour, fewer flowers, still fewer animals. It's the colour of the sky, when the ground is dry and the sun is hot. _

_Castiel's eyes are sad too. _

_He doesn't know why, he's heard Castiel tell him about 'rules' and 'men' and 'the book' things that Castiel thinks are important. But, Castiel belongs to him, not to other men, not to their book, so why should it matter? Castiel is his, and Dean is Castiel's – that is the way it is. This, what Dean wants to do, now, is for them only. Only they will see, only they will know, it is nothing to do with anyone else. _

_Dean's instincts are a tangled mess. They tell him that Castiel is his mate, that he is a beta, that it is Dean's right to mate him, and have him bear his pups. The rest of them tell Dean that Castiel is a man, and that right now, his mate is a frightened, hurt man – who needs him. _

_Dean lays his head down on Castiel's chest, and allows his body to go limp, his better instincts triumphing. _

_Castiel shakes and sobs and shivers, but he does not push him away._

_Dean understands speech, that skill never really left him, thanks to Sam. But...the words are slow in coming to him, and, like a dull tool, they were frustrating to use._

_Still, when Castiel begins to speak, Dean concentrates so hard, that his brow furrows, and his blunt teeth worry his lip._

"_Why did this happen?" Castiel says. "I was good, I believed in God, and doing right...living my life by His rules...and still I was driven out of my country, persecuted in this...strange new place...almost put to death. And...now, I find that I am spared, by God...but left here, tempted."_

_Dean does not understand 'God' it's a thing that continues to frustrate him. Sam, who knew more about the settlers even when they were younger, and even his mother, had tried to explain the idea of God to him. God was a man who lived in the sky, and who rewarded you for being good, and punished the wicked. He had created everything, and everything on earth he had given to man. Man ruled the animals, and the earth._

_But...Dean was an animal, did that mean he belonged to all men, everywhere? And where in 'the book' had God created things like him? No one in it was like him, or his father, or his mother. It was a stupid story. _

_Castiel was sad because of the story, because this, the two of them, wasn't in 'the book', and so he thought it was against the rules. The rules God had made. _

_Dean knew that things were different in the world to how they were in the stories his mother used to tell. In the stories there were huge floods, and water that turned into blood or wine, a magic horn that destroyed cities, and people turned into heaps of salt. There were angels, and the devil – and Dean had never seen either one of those things. He'd only ever seen strange birds, and snakes._

_But he does not know how to explain all this to Castiel. That things did not happen like in stories. They happened because people made them happen – and they either hurt or helped, pained or pleasured. _

"_I don't want to be here." Castiel says, and Dean understands that perfectly, holds Castiel a little tighter and is relived when the other man does not pull away. "I want...a place to call my own, a home and a family...but I have never wanted a wife. Now...now I think I know why, but, that does not make it right to..." Castiel lets out a shuddery breath._

_Dean knows that wives are like mates, and they have children. He's glad that Castiel does not want one. Castiel should not want to find anyone, because Dean had already found him. _

"_I can't do this." Castiel says, brokenly. "I cannot allow this to happen, I can't give in, I have to...fight this...please." He starts to move, pulling away, desperation colouring his words, and Dean holds him down, holds him there until Castiel looks up at him, his rare-coloured eyes wet again. "I have to be good, clean. And I have to go." Castiel whispers, "I have to...make this better, I have to go back to civilisation...they can fix this...they can..." He swallows. "There are righteous people. In places where I won't be tempted." He struggles to keep his eyes on Dean's. "You don't know of Hell, of the terrible things that will happen to me if I let this take over...I want to go to heaven, to...oh..." He searches for words, but Dean already knows what heaven is. A good place. A place for good kind people, like his mother._

_Castiel is good, and kind. Why should it matter that he is good and kind to Dean, and not to a wife? Goodness. Like God-ness. Words are too tricksome. _

"_Heaven is...when we die, we go there to be with God...it's a good place." Castiel tells him. _

_There are so many things that Dean would say, if he knew the words for them. He would say that Castiel is his, that he wants him, needs him. That this is nothing unnatural, but the most natural thing in the world. That without Castiel, he will be in Hell. That everything he wants is right here, and if it is taken from him, then he will change back, become an animal again, and walk right into a settlement, to be shot and nailed to the wall as a trophy. _

_What he says instead, are the only words he can marshal that seem to come from the place inside of him that aches with a pain that is somehow, a good one. _

"_You want to be with God?" He asks._

"_Very much." Castiel tells him._

"_Because you love God, God loves you."_

"_God loves all his children...even the flawed ones."_

_Dean thinks about that word 'love'. How it means how God feels, and how his mother felt for his father, but also for him and Sam. And how Dean feels for Sam, but also for warm days and hot food. _

"_But not like I love you." _

_Castiel looks at him, surprise on his face. _

_Dean repeats himself._

"_God loves you. But not like I do." He struggles with his meaning, what he wants to say is that...Castiel will be alone, and cold, and sad. Until he dies, and only then will God love him, and be with him. Dean will love Castiel another way. The way that keeps him warm at night, and fed. That keeps him happy, and does not make him cry. He will love him even when he is a man that walks on the dirt, rather than living in the sky. He will love him, and make him sigh, and shiver, and make the sounds he had made when Dean kissed him under his shirt. _

_He tries to make sense of it in words._

"_I will love you, even if you go." Dean says, "When you go to be with good people. I will love you. When you hate what I am. I will love you. When you die. I will love you. And when I die, you think I will be in Hell. Then I will go there. And I will love you."_

_Castiel looks at him, and Dean looks back, and thinks that, if God thinks Castiel looking at him like that is bad – then God is wrong. Because it is the best way anyone has ever looked at him. Like he is important, and special, clever and loved._

_Castiel doesn't move, but Dean senses a change in the way they are aligned, just before Castiel opens his mouth, just a little, the slight parting of lips. _

_All of Dean's instincts tell him what he already knows. _

_Castiel is his._

_He leans forwards, and this time, when he kisses him, there are no tears. _


	12. Chapter 12

**Beware, I am drunk. But...writing is happening. Oopsie. Planned plot event contained within. **

Castiel has never kissed like this before.

He remembers being kissed when he was ill, lips brushing his forehead and his cheek. Some kind soul caring for him while he lay in the grips of fever. He has felt the kisses of young girls, when he was himself five years old.

Dean kisses like he wants to be inside of him. As if, like the wolf in the old stories, he wants to slide down Castiel's throat, into his belly, and hide there.

Castiel opens his mouth to him, and feels Dean's lips dip between his. Tugging on his own and sliding over them. When Dean's tongue searches out his own, Castiel finds the feeling so surprising, so strange, that he does not think to oppose it. Dean's hands find his, and raise them over his head, laying them out on the stone floor.

Still Castiel does not rebel.

He thinks he would let Dean do anything he likes with him, as long as he will kiss him like that. As long as he will touch all of his skin to his own, so warm and smooth.

Dean removes Castiel's shirt, busy hands stoking over his chest as gently, as purposefully as Dean had once liked warmth back into his frozen skin. Castiel shivers, a warmth settling in him like a strong drink.

When Dean drops his mouth to Castiel's chest, between his collar bones, in the place that would be the space between his breasts – had he possessed them, the warm upper of his belly, the dip in its centre and down. Castiel can only lie on his back, feeling taken over, as if by wildfire, only, a fire that burns wet, and deep and hot – rather than bright and dry. He feels saturated, throbbing, low, and filled with undercurrents.

All his life he thought he was a spring, clear and clean and characterless. When beneath there were subterranean caves of dark rocks, and deep, mineral rich waters.

He doesn't even jump when Dean's crude hand touches him where Castiel has never been touched before. A place he himself only touches in the most commonplace of ways. But under Dean's fingers, the mundane, base instrument of excretion sends such waves of heat and pleasure through him, that Castiel cannot help but arch from the floor, pressing himself into Dean's willing hands.

He had no idea his body was capable of holding this much feeling – this much sensation. He has experienced the rise of physical excitement before, fortunately in private, on his lumpen tick, under his sheets. It was a shameful thing, quickly dealt with. But now...he revels in Dean's touches, that seem to be wherever he most needs them, changing second by second.

He must cry out Dean's name, because the other man murmurs, 'Cas' as if it's something like a curse, and a forbidden rosary prayer, meshed into one in the dark.

Dean's fingers touch under his body, under the twitching, desperate flesh of his member, brushing the ripe swelling of the lower organ, tickling between his legs, and beyond, until Castiel gasps, and bends his knees, slipping away from the touch.

Dean shushes him, one hand petting his thigh.

He removes his hand, lifting it to his mouth long enough to spit on his fingers, before returning it to its former location.

It's such an ugly thing, and Castiel's mind struggles to make sense of it.

Dean looks at him, "So it will hurt less. The mating." He explains.

Castiel wrestles with the idea, trying to find the logic of Dean's words, a difficult task with wet fingers caressing his backside, and Dean's other hand once again pleasuring him.

Several facts clash together in his mind, and Castiel experiences a jolt of realisation.

"You're going to..." His voice cracks, and he forces his traitorous hips to cease their continuous shifting, pushing his aching hardness through Dean's curled fingers. "...enter me?"

Dean nods, fingers moving with more purpose, pushing alarmingly.

Castiel jerks a little way from them, even though it loses him the delightful stroking of Dean's hand.

"Dean...I am not a woman...I don't have..." Castiel blushes. Despite his current undress, his arousal, which is currently drooling an alarming fluid over his stomach, it is the mention of the female body that forces the blood to his cheeks. "...I am not possessed of a woman's virtue." He explains, primly, using words learnt from the old spinster that served as village midwife.

A smile flickers over Dean's mouth, and for a second Castiel is lost in it. Dean is...almost a work of art. He reminds him of the stained glass windows in the catholic churches, before they were broken by his fellows – vivid green eyes, golden skin, like the sun has just come out from behind the clouds, gilding him like a saint.

"I know." Dean tells him. "Sam...he told me. This. This is the men's way."

Castiel had known, the theoretical, dark golem of sodomy. He knew that it was men, lying with men, committing acts of sin, of carnal lust. But he had not contemplated the actual act itself, beyond some half imagined, half dreamt fantasies that had not been over burdened with physical detail. But Dean...has apparently gained the knowledge of this act, from Sam. For a second Castiel feels almost betrayed.

"He told you to...to do this?"

Dean looks at him, as honest as a wolf sitting beside its kill, showing no remorse, nor shame. "I wanted to do right, with you. A..." he struggles for the word. "...mistake, could hurt you."

Dean slides his body lower, until he can kiss Castiel's belly, and Castiel realises that once again he is exposed, submissive to the alpha.

Then Dean's mouth moves lower, and Castiel is partly shocked, partly lost, in the feeling of lips – of the tongue that had embraced his so little time ago...now caressing his intimate flesh, as hot and ardent as if it were merely kissing his lips, with no trace of aversion.

His body goes limp on the floor, then tightens unexpectedly, until he is held in the grip of a spasm that builds, tensing his every muscle, until Castiel feels he might die if it finally grips him – and that he might die if it doesn't.

Finally, with a fresh touch of Dean's smooth, wet mouth, Castiel loses his weak grasp on the world around him, loses everything – his name, his memory, his sight and awareness, save for the feel of Dean touching him.

Dean's fingers, wet and strong, slide under him, wriggling for a second of blunt pressure, before intruding into him. It's a sensation unlike anything else, feeling his body, and a part of him he has never considered before, _gripping_ Dean's finger, so tightly that he's almost afraid Dean will have to remain there indefinitely.

Yet, Dean finds some way of moving inwards, deeper, and Castiel closes his eyes, feeling Dean's lips gently brush his spent organ, lapping curiously at the jism on his stomach. Without the intensity of pleasure that had previously fogged his mind, Castiel feels his shame creeping back – mentally shaping the picture they must make together, Dean with his finger probing his body, licking the remains of Castiel's shattered control from him.

"Cas?"

He opens his eyes to find Dean looking up at him. His perfect mouth is reddened, swollen, Castiel thinks with a twinge of regret, from his efforts on his arousal. The finger inside of him twists, and is joined by another.

"Hurts?" Dean asks, seemingly having no need for the words that would make the rest of the question.

"No." Castiel says, truthfully, for it doesn't hurt, but feels strange, and wrong and strangely compulsive – like when he was a child, and he'd dip his tongue into the raw-tasting grooves of lost milk teeth.

Dean looks at him, as if trying to decipher him. "Doesn't hurt...but...?"

"It feels..." Castiel swallows. "I don't know..." and then he admits something that he hadn't even fully thought to himself yet. "I don't want to like it, but I don't want you to stop."

Dean frowns, confused. "Don't want..." his fingers absently seek within Castiel, and Castiel abruptly grunts, body pushing down on the fingers inside of him, before he can fully decide what it is that he should be doing. It just feels so good, better even than what Dean has just done to him.

He loses the words for 'want' and 'don't stop' and 'please'.

There's only one that he can force from his mouth.

"More."

The third finger squirming into him makes him shout helplessly, it hurts, but it's a good hurt. He doesn't know how, and he doesn't care. Dean's hand is more brutal now, responding to the urgency in the way that Castiel's body moves.

Then, suddenly, it's gone.

It's just all gone, and Castiel is cold, and untouched. The space between his legs still burning a little, feeling wet and open and...

And Dean pulls his legs up, and open, and Castiel lets him.

He isn't even conscious of the sound that uncoils from his throat as Dean joins them together, but Dean hears it, the long, loud sound, so similar to the mating calls he's heard in the forest. He lets his body fall over Castiel's deeply rooted in him, experiencing at last the feeling of being fully mated. Possessing, joining the one who's scent had already claimed him. Claiming Castiel in return.

Clumsy, demanding hands grabs at his back, and Castiel's heart drums as if it's pressed between their slick chests.

"I'm..." Castiel starts, and he could say that he's on edge again, that he's about to fall apart again. That he's not hurt. That he's confused, and knows he will be so, painfully shamed by this later. "I'm yours, aren't I?"

Dean kisses him, deep and wet, satisfied that Castiel – so slow and so very, very human – thinking with his busy mind, rather than with his cunning ears, quick feet, heart and urgent sex – has finally caught up to what Dean's known all along.

Castiel is his.

Having mounted his mate, Dean wastes no time in pursuing his own, long delayed pleasure. Castel buries his face against Dean's neck, whimpering in a way that Dean knows does not come from pain. His blood surges, and he can feel the gathering of his body, the way it starts to move without his intention.

The ear-splitting noise around them makes them both jolt, and Dean barely has time to collect his senses before an arm wraps around his throat, dragging him backwards.

Castiel shouts his name, and Dean clings to him, fighting the hands, many many hands, that are pulling at him. He smells gunpowder, horses, leather and strange food and plants. He fights still harder, knowing that he is outmatched, that there is no time. He lunges for Castiel, and sinks his teeth into his mate's arm.

Castiel cries out, shouts his name again – more hurt this time, more afraid.

Then the stock of a rifle strikes the back of Dean's head.

And everything goes black with the sound of Castiel's voice – pleading with the strange men around him to spare his life.


	13. Chapter 13

**:P I stand by my cliff hanger. But here, have an update. For anyone who was confused, yes, it was Dean's life that Castiel was begging for. Places mentioned here are totally made up/stolen accidently from RPGs :P **

"Don't hurt him!" Castiel shouts, fighting the hands of the men as they clasp his upper arms, dragging him away from Dean's unconscious body.

One of the men punches him in the stomach, and Castiel crumples to his knees.

"Don't bruise him so – we won't get paid." One of the men warns.

Castiel spits blood onto the floor, he's bitten his tongue.

"He's lucky, he should be hanged." Someone over him growls.

"He might still be, t'isnt for us to say."

Castiel is dragged back to his feet. Something scratchy and heavy is dropped over his shoulders, a cloak of rough fabric. One of the men wrenches his arms behind his back and clasps them in cold manacles. As Castiel tries to pull away, another set of manacles are closed around his ankles, hobbling him.

"Take him outside, put him on one of the horses."

"No..." Castiel says weakly. "Dean."

"We're taking him back to New Haven." The man pushing him says. "Likely you won't be seeing him again, not till you meet in Hell." He wraps cruel fingers over the bite on Castiel's arm and squeezes, forcing blood out of the wound, along with the clear liquid that is already welling up, attempting to clot the bite closed. "Looks like we got to you just in time, bloody animal like that, mind you, you're no better."

Castiel flinches. He's naked, covered in sweat and spittle and spend, blood running down his arm, a burning pain inside of him.

God, what has he done?

The men force him outside, into the cold and the icy air. There are four horses, and Castiel is hoisted up onto one, both his legs precariously on one side. The rider, a sullen faced older man with colourless eyes, climbs up behind him, and urges the horse into motion, jostling Castiel as he rides off into the forest.

Casting his eyes behind them, Castiel catches a glimpse of Dean being throw into an iron cage on the back of a rough cart. Then the sight is snatches away by trees, and Castiel is forced to put all of his energy into not falling to the frozen ground.

When the men had first rendered Dean unconscious, Castiel's first though had been for the other man's safety, now however, he thinks of himself, and of the fate that awaits him. Who are these men? And how did they find him, if indeed it is him that they were looking for. Where in God's name was New Haven?

Several times in the harrowing journey Castiel finds himself slipping off of the horse, only to be dragged back into place by the uncaring hands of his captor. He's freezing cold, naked under the rough cloak, and the jolting of the horse worsens the soreness in his limbs, shaking his thoughts out over the ground, pounding them to dust under restless hooves. Until at last, the only thought he can hold is 'Dean' - with every jolt of the horse, and every hitch of his heart, beating it's panic in his chest.

At long last the forest gives way to thinner trees, then burnt stubs, and finally, to fields ready for cultivation. The horse throws up turned earth, and it spatters Castiel from head to toe, flicking into his mouth and eyes.

The reach a muddy but serviceable road, fashioned from bare planks pegged to the clay. It is laid out in a straight line, and at last, Castiel catches another glimpse of Dean. The cage, on its rickety platform is like the enclosures used to hold animals for a travelling circus, and Castiel can spy only the faintest glimpse of Dean's back through the bars. He's lying face down, and Castiel prays that he is still alive. The cage is flanked by three riders, and Castiel looks at them fearfully. Who are they?

A great groaning and clanking forces his attention back to the road ahead. Before them, a stockade rises from the mud, and Castiel can smell the faint salt tang of the sea. The gate at the centre of the bristling wall of tree trunks is opening, winched by chains as thick as a man's foreleg. The rider takes them both through the gate, and it slowly closes behind them.

Castiel's heart lurches as the gates close, leaving Dean and his captors on the other side.

The buildings around him are unfinished, partial structures of wood, their outsides mostly shingled in fresh cut planking. The road is a muddy soup, mounds of earth left from foundation digging rise out of the streets like grave mounds. There are people roaming the slop, dressed in the same kind of dark, palin garments that Castiel himself used to wear, what feels like a lifetime ago.

A puritan settlement.

Moments later, they leave behind the growing settlement, and Castiel amends his assumption.

A port.

Before him the street, now paved and cobbled, leads down to the splintery wooden docks, the calm morning sea. There are rows of houses, real houses, built of quarried stone and imported brick. They shame the puritan quarter, and for a moment Castiel feels transported, back to England. To Plymouth.

Then the rough motion of the horse grounds him again, and he closes his eyes to the splendour of the town, wishing instead for his home – the first home he has ever had, a cave with drawings on its mica flecked walls. A cave with a warm bed at its heart, and a warm body there, to lie with.

When the horse is finally brought to a stop, Castiel almost falls, and has only just regained some balance when his is forcibly thrown down into the waiting hands of two liveried footmen. They catch at his cloak, but the fastenings are loose, and he falls out of it onto the wet ground, naked and peppered with mud flecks. He looks up at the horse, and its rider, who leans down and takes a fat bag of coins from one of the footmen.

"Delivered as promised."

"And the other?"

"With my men, on his way to Blackstone."

"They'll be paid there then." The footman says stiffly. He looks down at Castiel. "He's bruised."

"But not seriously harmed. I kept my word." The rider says flatly. "Besides, if he is to be hanged..."

"That will be the master's choice." The other footman, a blond man in pristine uniform cuts in.

The rider grumbles, then spits onto Castiel's upturned face. "Filth." He growls, then jerks his reins and canters away.

The footmen pull Castiel to his feet, one bundles the sodden cloak around him once more. The fair haired man takes out a lace edged kerchief, and carefully wipes the spittle from Castiel's face, a moue of distaste touching his mouth.

"Take him inside." He murmurs, and Castiel finds himself propelled towards a door in a recess to the left and below of a grand set of stone steps. He has only the briefest impression of the manor's impressive facade before the door opens and he is ushered into a stone flagged servant's hallway. His feet whisper on the stone, and the air around him is almost warm, filled with the scents of cookery and laundry.

At the end of the hallway, a figure appears, the steward of the house, balding and old, dressed in expensive velvet.

"He's to be taken upstairs, to the yellow room. Bathed, clothed, and made presentable." He orders, "I have maids deployed already for him. But you shall supervise, should he become wilful, I expect you to restrain him."

He speaks as though Castiel is a dumb animal, a dog to be groomed and leashed and paraded.

"Who am I to be presented to?" Castiel asks sharply.

The steward looks at him as if he is an insect, crawling on its belly in a damp recess of a forgotten hovel. Castiel knows that he looks disgraceful, that he has done something so intensely wrong that it does not bear repeating...but surely that sin is not written on his face? A mark, as with Cain, for the world to see.

The steward moves his luxuriously suited form out of Castiel's reach. "Take him, at once."

The two stewards take him under the arms and half carry, half drag him through the kitchens, and up flights and flights of dark, narrow stairs. Ascending to giddying heights and finally exciting the shadows through a slim door, that is the reverse of a wall panel in the most lavish room Castiel has ever seen.

"The yellow room." Announces the fair haired footman.

It is indeed plastered and painted a pale, butter yellow. The floor carpeted in a lush, deep gold. There are white plaster mouldings about the ceiling, and elegant portraiture on the walls. But it is the bed that has Castiel's attention. A magnificent bed, with four wooden posts and a canopy of silk tapestry, depicting yellow flowers that Castiel remembers from England, pillows filled with down, and silken sheets and draperies of inestimable worth.

But it is not this that his eyes fix upon.

It is the restraints at the headboard that his eyes refuse to leave.

After a few shocked seconds, he struggles, pitching himself away from his captors and scrambling for the door. He can run down those stairs, and what is one steward? A handful of maids? He can fight if he must.

A blow brings him down, the full weight of one of the footmen takes him to the floor, lost for breath. He's dragged to his feet, his cloak snatched away. The dark haired footman strikes him across the face.

"You will behave." He snaps.

"Alistair." The other footman warns.

"He fell." Alistair says, not taking his eyes from Castiel's face. "You saw him Balthazar. Such a clumsy thing."

Balthazar's gaze moves between them, then he holds out a hand. "Come and bathe, and I promise you – he will not strike you again."

Castiel remains rooted to the spot.

"Castiel." The fair haired man says, surprising him. "Yes, we've heard of you...we're friends here. There's no reason to fight us."

Castiel looks at him, then follows the direction of his pointing finger, to the bathtub on the far side of the room. Castiel has never seen a bath before – he has always washed from basins, or in streams and lakes. No one he has ever known has owned a bath – or lived in a home this splendid.

The presence of such luxuries do nothing to ease his fears.

Still, he does not want to be harmed any further, and the bath, a metal tub lined with linen, is filled with steaming water, emitting the fragrance of expensive soap. Meekly he approaches it, and stops short when he finds that there are two maids standing beside it. His nakedness, and the stains and marks on his body, burn with a new kind of shame.

He climbs quickly into the water, hiding himself and hugging his knees.

The two men do not leave, and, as he is presented with a cloth, soap and linen bundle of barley and lavender, he becomes aware that both are watching him. He dislikes the attention, which flusters him as much as it makes him cringe with humiliation. The hot water searing his backside reminds him once more that he has fallen into sin, and he feels so lost, so small that he wishes he could sink into the water and dissolve, like a sliver of soap.

When he is finished with the bath, he stands up, and uneasily allows the maids to wrap him with warmed linens, drying him before they help him into a dark green robe.

A suit of clothes is laid out on the bed, and he is not sure when it was placed there, so quietly was the thing done. The clothes are better than any he has ever seen before, breeches of soft brown stuff, a linen shirt and an embroidered waistcoat.

There are no shoes however.

To his further humiliation, he is dressed by the maids, despite his struggles to fasten his own clothing. It has been so long since he dressed in clothes that were meant for him, and not for someone much larger. Dean's clothes. He misses them, and their tallow and hide scent.

"Quite the exotic savage." Balthazar comments, bundling the wet cloak under one arm. "You dine in one hour. Do try not to make a mess of yourself."

And with that, he is left alone.

The footmen lock the door behind them, and though Castiel tries it, along with the other door, and the windows, he can find no escape. He looks out of the window, trying to see beyond the town, beyond the ramshackle puritan homes. He can just make out the palisade and the road beyond. In the far, far distance he can see a blur, what might be the forest, or another settlement.

He leans his forehead against the glass and sighs, fogging it with his breath.

Where is Dean now? Where is Sam?

He touches the bite on his arm, now cleaned by the bathwater. Why had Dean hurt him? To place on him a reminder of his ownership, he assumed. A scar like a battle tattered ear, to remind him of Dean when they were separated. He touches the puckered wound, finding it once again slick with the agent of his own bodies healing, the copious clear liquid that will form a barrier over his punctured flesh.

An hour has never passed at such length, and at least, Balthazar returns to unlock the room, and lead him through several more luxuriant rooms, until they reach a dining room, containing a table set for two, with platters of fine silver, heaped with roasted meat, exotic fruit, and freshly prepared confections.

At the head of the table is a man.

"Thank you, that will be all." He bids Balthazar.

"Very good." The footman replies, and disappears from the room.

"Do come and sit down." The man tells him, dark eyes flashing at him. "Let me see the famous witch of the deep forest."

Castiel starts. "I am not a witch, sir."

"Disappointing." Says the man, not looking disappointed in the least. "But the people of your village assured me of your credentials...still, come sit, we have matters to discuss."

Castiel pauses. "What has become of my...of the man you took, along with me?"

The man smiles slightly. "Put aside for the moment. But, should you fail to amuse me, I don't fancy his chances. Sit. If you would."

Castiel takes his seat.

"I am the patron of New Haven." The man tells him. "Alexander Crowley, of the city of London, you know it?"

"Of course."

"Well, my search for new business has brought me here, to this...God fearing country. I thought the puritans were insufferable on the king's own soil, but here they are practically a plague." Crowley sighs. "Still, they make for excellent dinner company, if you find just the right subject. They adore their fairytales, their fictions." He smiles. "Do help yourself to the food, the wine in particular, is spiced to my own recipe." The look in his eyes brooks no argument, and Castiel hesitantly reaches for his glass and sips the contents, a red wine with a heady taste of cloves and potent spice.

"Good isn't it." Crowley says. "Anyway...it happens that I had the opportunity to speak with selectman Zachariah, you know him, yes?"

"I do."

"He told me all about the village witch, that slew a babe and its mother, with a nefarious spell. And who escaped a hanging, by the invocation of a rite that brought forth savages from the forest, to set about the village."

"I did no such thing, I..."

"Silence." Crowley orders.

Castiel closes his mouth, afraid.

"You'll ruin my story." Crowley admonishes. "You see, your former people searched for you, but were visited by a snow storm that obscured your tracks, and made it impossible to reach far into the forest. But, soon after, they began the search again."

"And now they have found me." Castiel mutters. The wine is bitter in his mouth, but he drinks a little more anyway, allowing it's temporary sweetness to wash the dryness of fear from his tongue.

"No, I have found you." Crowley corrects him. "Your people, they entered the woods, in small parties...eight men in all. And they found no trace of the witch that had evaded them, or perhaps they did. But...they never returned to tell of their discoveries."

Castiel feels a chill run down his spine.

"They were slain, in the woods." Crowley tells him, as tasting the words as if relishing a chunk of superbly cooked meat. "By a wolf, a wolf that sought them with the intellect, and persistence of an animal possessed of human will. An animal they believe was controlled by the devil suckling demon that eluded death...and eludes them still."

Castiel tries valiantly to still his racing heart. "I am not a witch. I ran from them because I did not wish to die, I have no control over..."

"But, you are a sinner, are you not?" Crowley interrupts. "My men, well, several mercenary gentlemen in my employ, have already reported to me that they found the witch in the forest...lying as a newly made wife, with a half-blood savage."

Castiel actually feels his heart stop, starting again with a vicious thump.

"Here is the deal that I intend to broker to you." Crowley says pleasantly. "I am, very bored here, in this muddy hole of a town, far from the amenities of a good and dirty city...and I think that perhaps you have it in you to amuse me. If you do not, if you refuse...then I will have you executed, either as a witch or a sodomite – hanged all the same. And I will find my amusements elsewhere...perhaps in having your abomination of a lover set in the stocks, and whipped until he expires."

Castiel doesn't realise he's shaking his head until the view before his eyes shifts. "Please don't..."

"Then we're in agreement." Crowley says happily, selecting a fatted portion of meat on the platter in front of him, and spearing it with a silver fork to transfer it to his own plate.

"What do you want me to do?" Castiel murmurs, not knowing exactly what Crowley will want of him. Perhaps a servant, someone to beat and humiliate, or perhaps to break with heavy labour. There's cruelty in his mouth, and Castiel is so very afraid. But he fears Dean's death more than anything else.

"I want..." Crowley slices the bloody meat with a wicked knife, and holds up the fork, letting the sliver of meat drip its rare juices onto the white cloth between them. Castiel opens his mouth at the other man's silent urging, and accepts the bloody morsel. "...for you to finish your meal...and bare yourself to me."

Castiel looks at him, and, like a memory from a bad dream, he recalls the restraints on the bed in the accursed yellow room.

He swallows, and his mouth tastes like blood.

"No." He says weakly, he feels exhausted, somehow unfocused, as if he has been struck by sickness.

"I'm afraid I shall have to take you at your former words." Crowley tells him. "But I promise...you will find me much more skilled, than your savage."

Castiel tries to get up, but slides from his chair, to the floor, dragging the table cloth and several dishes along with him. Crowley doesn't seem to care, instead he stands and rings for his servants, intending to have Castiel transported to the bedroom.

The last thing Castiel is aware of is the scent of the poppy in the wine that is now spilled over his clean shirt.

The scent of the drug that sealed the nightmare around him.


	14. Chapter 14

**Congrats Evil Squirrel – you were right on money **

Castiel wakes up with the strong taste of the wine still languishing in his mouth. His head aches as if it's been split open with a stone weight, and his eyes barely open.

His whole body hurts.

That shocks him out of his stupor. He moves his limbs a little, feeling the terrible ache in his insides, an ache that reminds him of the words Crowley had spoken to him. He eases upright, finding that he's been curled on his side, balled up tightly and half draped in a sheet that smells sourly of sweat and the taint of another man.

Looking down at himself, Castiel is sickened by the sight of the bruises on his hips and thighs. He stares at them, at the grim indentations of that foul man's body on his own, and feels a tide of black gorge rise in his throat.

In the space of a day he'd given up his purity to Dean, and then had everything else good in him stolen by a craven thug.

He wishes he had been hanged. Hell could not be worse than this – taking the pleasure he had known and turning it into a weapon against him, putting him in a place where even sleep provided no escape from the hurt.

The soft opening of a door surprises him.

Balthazar enters the room, carrying a porcelain basin of warm water and a linen cloth.

"You're awake." He says, "I thought perhaps that you would sleep the day away. It's long past noon."

Castiel just looks at him. He doesn't want to speak to anyone here. They're monsters, and he wishes they were dead. All of them, for bringing him here, and readying him for a man like that.

"You're angry." Balthazar says, setting the basin down. "I expect...all this is quite a shock to you, being away from your man." He dips the cloth and squeezes water from it with practiced fingers. "You'll get used to it."

"I don't want to get used to it." Castiel murmurs.

"I don't think you have a choice." Balthazar tells him. "It's how we all got here...me, Alistair...all of us spent our time in here. We're lucky Crowley liked us enough to keep us on."

"To wait on him, and serve his prisoners." Castiel says blankly.

"Others had worse." Balthazar tells him. "The last one was burned, accused of heresy."

Castiel has nothing to say to that.

"I don't want you to end like that, rendering onto the market square...my advice? Take the wine – if it's offered. It's better than being there...and remembering."

Castiel is at once deeply saddened and ashamed, after all, Balthazar has suffered as he is suffering now.

"I'm sorry if I offended..."

"Quite alright." Balthazar tells him. "Now...can you wash yourself?"

"Yes." Castiel says faintly.

"Then I will leave you." Balthazar hands him the wet cloth and leaves the room.

Castiel silently arranges himself and closes his eyes as he attends to the ache between his legs. Carefully wiping away the traces of the act he cannot remember.

When Balthazar returns to take away the basin of soiled water, he presents Castiel with a fresh, lace edged kerchief, and waits while he dries his tears.

It would be comforting, if the only thing Castiel wanted wasn't miles away, lost to him, perhaps forever.

(-*-)

Dean flings himself against the bars of the cage for the final time, slumping to the floor of the cage and breathing heavily. He doesn't know how long he's been here, in the dark, throwing himself at the solid bars and roaring to be let out. His back and sides are bruised, and there are cuts from the jagged metal. He bangs the bars with his hands and shouts into the dark.

No one replies.

The drags himself to the other side of the cage, shakes the bars there, but, still there are no weaknesses.

He's wet, and cold, naked to the freezing air, and covered in mud from the beating he'd taken in the mire outside of this place. He can't change, there isn't enough room for his body to thrash through the process. Even if there was, he doesn't want these men to know what he can do.

He still smells faintly of Castiel, and that is more maddening than his confinement.

What have they done with Castiel, with his mate?

At some point in the night, Dean had felt a sharp pain that he couldn't trace. It seemed to come from everywhere. And he knew, he knew that it was Castiel, hurting somewhere.

He had never wanted Castiel hurt again. When Sam had explained about Castiel's village, about how the people there were looking for Castiel, to hurt him, Dean had set out to cull those that took to the forest. He had thought he had Castiel protected.

Now he knows that he was wrong.

Dean launches himself at the bars again. He will get to Castiel. He will find the people hurting him. And, he will kill them.

When he was taken from Castiel, Dean had known he had almost no time to act before Castiel was out of his reach. He'd done the only thing he could think of, the only thing he could do. It was something his father, and even Sam had said was the worst thing he could ever do.

He only hopes that they were wrong.

(-*-)

Castiel is sitting with his knees drawn up, on a silk couch in the yellow room. He has on a clean shirt, fine linen on his bruised skin.

He feels like someone else. As if the Castiel that was, died in the snow, alone in the forest. And he was born again, taken in by Sam and Dean to carve out a new self. The self that finally felt complete when he accepted Dean as his...the self that died on a brocaded bed while he slept a cursed drugged sleep, lost to his mate, lost to himself.

He looks down at his bare legs, thin and pale on the cushion.

He can't fight, he knows that. He can't resist, because Dean will die, he himself will most likely die. There is no hope of reasoning with Crowley, no hope of rescue. For even when Sam returns to the cave in a few days time, how will he know where to find him? Or Dean for that matter? They were carried a great distance, Castiel on horseback, Dean in that awful cage...was there still a scent trail? Or had the shifting, rain soaked mire erased it?

Castiel scratches at his arm absently, the harder as his skin crawls with prickling irritations. Then his fingers touch the bite there, and he rubs it gently. It's almost comforting, a reminder that he had once lived in the home of someone who truly cared for him. Dean might have been an animal for most of their time together...but he had shown him more mercy, and more understanding than the animal Castiel currently found himself imprisoned by.

Again, his mind wanders to the terrible injury done to him, and he folds in on himself, distraught. He has nothing now, not his faith, not his righteousness, not even his own body.

All that's left to him, is the small reminder of Dean.

Balthazar comes to him again, this time carrying a tray with a crystal goblet of wine on it. He sets it on the small table by Castiel's elbow.

Castiel makes no move to take it.

"Please drink it." Balthazar asks. "Save yourself the misery."

"Why should it be easy for him?" Castiel says blankly. "Besides...perhaps now I stand a chance."

Balthazar sighs. "Don't fight him...you will lose, and he does not forgive anything or anyone."

"And instead I should have this sin forced on me?" Castiel cries.

"You've sinned before." Balthazar points out. "The men who brought you to us, they were filled with stories. The whole house knows how they found you. Is it so bad with him? So much worse than a...savage in the woods?"

Castiel remembers Dean vividly, and he has to blink to force tears back.

"I sinned because I knew him...and I knew myself then. Because he saved my life, and made me love him...and he loved me more than I love God." Castiel stresses. "Can you imagine that? A love that strong...for that love I would do anything. And I gave myself to him, because I love him more than I love my soul."

Balthazar picks up the glass of wine and holds it out. "Then do this, because you love him more than your body...compared to your soul...it's worthless."

Castiel glares at him. "I'd rather be damned for loving...than do the damnable out of fear."

Balthazar colours and sets the glass down, leaving in a rustle of silken shirt and velvet cloth. Castiel looks at the wine. The idea of oblivion has never seemed more inviting, but he cannot do it. Dean deserves his loyalty, and his rebellion. Even if the battle is confined to Castiel's thoughts alone.

(-*-)

The pain is back.

Dean wakes up with a groan, opening his eyes to the darkness and feeling pain radiate from all over his body. He tries to move, but it's as though hands are holding him down. He struggles but they do not loosen.

Somewhere Castiel is in pain.

Dean shouts and curses and screams until one of the men comes and flings a pail of water over him. There are shards of ice in it, and Dean snarls at him, at the icy cold all over his naked skin that does nothing to cool the searing burn in his insides.

When he does not still, another man comes with an iron bar, and strikes him with it. Dean slides into the blackness of unconsciousness, but still he feels the pain, deep and powerful.

Castiel's pain, and Castiel's terror.

(-*-)

He can't help himself. When Crowley comes for him, Castiel fights.

He struggles against the two footmen who drag him to the bed. He scratches and kicks and punches as they remove the shirt from him and try to force him down onto the mattress. He spits and bites and jerks away from them as they wrench his arms up and restrain him. His skin burns, and in places he has scratched himself raw.

Crowley watches with vague amusement from the other side of the room. "Balthazar told me you didn't take the draught, though I didn't quite believe it."

The footmen tie Castiel's flailing feet down and step back. One picks up a thick piece of leather.

"I think we'll forgo the gag." Crowley interjects. The footman puts the leather down and both men leave the room.

Crowley approaches the bed, disposing of his shirt and carefully laying it on the back of a chair.

"I see you've decided to fight me...though what for I don't know. Your life, your lover and your...not inconsiderable physical charms, all belong to me."

Castiel eyes him watchfully. "If I'm to be used, I will not be willing."

"Changed your tune from our last assignation I see."

"I was drugged, and whatever you did to me, I will see you punished for." There's a knife hidden in his words, a cold, hard conviction that Castiel didn't realise he was capable of until that moment. But once there, he cannot shake it.

Crowley undoes his breeches and steps out of them, shedding his underclothes before taking his place on the foot of the bed, one hand touching Castiel's thigh lightly. "I assure you, I did nothing to you."

"Liar," spits Castiel."

"Where would the fun be..." says Crowley, seizing Castiel's thighs and dragging him down the bed so that the other man yelps, his arms pulled tight in their restraints. "In toying with your body, without you inside of it to appreciate my efforts?"

Castiel feels sick.

"How..."

"...did you end up so deliciously marked?" Crowley pets one of the bruises on his hip. "I couldn't help myself, besides, a small trace of my affection helped to preserve the illusion of our time together."

Castiel thinks of the flaking deposit he had washed from between his legs that morning, and shudders. He is appalled and terrified by this man – who seems at once to be cunning or mad.

Perhaps he is both, and that makes him all the more dangerous.

Still, there is something in Castiel that refuses to lie, afraid and vulnerable, whilst Crowley takes from him whatever he wants.

"Listen to me." Castiel says, and the voice in his mouth is not his voice, at least not one he recognises. It's quiet, and strong, and almost arrogantly powerful. "If you lay a hand on me, I will kill you."

Crowley chuckles. "I'll do more than lay a hand on you."

"Then I will tear you apart." Castiel says, and finds that he means it, more than that, he _knows_ it.

Crowley pauses for a second, then back hands him viciously. "You're wasting my time, and...if I remain as bored as I am now, I may just have your lover gutted and put out for the crows.

Castiel opens his mouth to say...something, he doesn't even know anymore, his mouth has left his mind in the dark as to it's motives. But, all that comes out is a strangled yell, as a searing pain stabs him in the arm.

Crowley strikes him again, and then Castiel hears him curse. "You're bleeding on my best linens." He hisses, "still, there was bound to be blood."

Castiel looks down and finds that his arm is bleeding a veritable stream, the wound deep and fresh seeming. It hurts far more than it did when it was first created, and as he watches, Castiel sees cords stand out on his arm, sinew and veins just beneath the skin. It is astonishingly painful, as if hot needles are being threaded under his skin. Castiel's whole body heaves off of the bed, pulling at the restraints, his spine locking with pain.

Crowley slaps him down again, and Castiel...shatters.

There's nothing. Nothing but black around him, darkness pressing at his ears and nose and mouth. He can't feel anything around him. He is suspended in the blackness.

When he comes back to himself, he's lying face down on something hard. He opens his eyes to a scratchy surface, russet coloured and uncomfortable.

So, Crowley had finished with him and left him for the maids to clear away.

The thing he's lying on is wet, and Castiel wrinkles his nose in disgust. It smells foul. He rolls onto his side, and gets to his feet unsteadily.

He brings his hand up to his mouth, a shout stifled behind it.

The russet colour is blood. A lake of blood that is spread over half the floor, and fountains up the wall, pooling on the bed. Something soft touches his chest, and Castiel looks down to see the tattered remains of the restraints tangling from his wrists.

Castiel reaches for the ragged belt, pulling at it.

And that's when he sees his hand.

Both his hands are gloved in blood to the elbows, spattered and smeared with it. Dark crusts of it ring his nail beds. But the most terrible thing, are the inch long, curved claws, that protrude from under the nails themselves.

Castiel looks at them in horror, a howl of fear choking his throat and dying there.

He looks down, and sees that his feet are similarly disfigured.

He turns, searching for a mirror, desperate to see what has happened to him while he was lost to wakefulness.

Castiel turns and sees Crowley, slumped at the foot of the wall, under a large stain that tells of his bulk being launched at the wall itself. His chest is open, his face obliterated, skin carved away in ribbons.

Castiel falls to his knees, trembling, and sobs into his warped fingers.

(-*-)

Dean regains consciousness, and finally the pain is gone.

It has given way to a different sensation, one that actually makes his skin prickle with warmth, his stomach alive with expectation.

It is the deep sense that, where only hours ago, there were two, there are now three.

He is connected not only to Sam, but to another like himself.

To Castiel.

He leans his tired body back against the bars and closes his eyes.

Castiel is safe. Finally.

(-*-)

Once he has dry heaved onto the carpet until his stomach is sore, Castiel staggers to his feet and finds a looking glass in the front of a wardrobe. He inspects himself, his naked body covered in blood, his freakish claws, and his eyes, which have changed in a way that is not immediately clear. But they are different, and it frightens him.

He drags a cloak from the wardrobe and hastily dons it, sliding breeches on underneath and taking a pair of brown leather gloves to hide his hands and bloody arms. He puts on riding boots and raises his hood.

He has to escape, before he is found, and hanged for murder.

Castiel looks between the two locked doors, helpless, but somehow his gaze is dragged to the lead patterned window. He crosses to it and pushes it open. Below is a sheer drop, three floors to the stone flags below. A tree stands perhaps ten feet out of reach, waving mockingly in the breeze.

Castiel simultaneously curses his helplessness,

and jumps.

The impact of the tree surprises him, and he chokes on a terrified shout as he feels his claws dig into the crisp bark. He chances a glance back at the window, innocently gazing at him from so, very, far away.

Climbing down the tree is almost easy, and Castiel soon finds himself fleeing through the grounds, running out of the gates and into the street with nothing to impede his progress. He makes his way, hardly pausing to breathe, down into the town, and on through it, until he is once more in the mud of the puritan quarter.

A great outcry comes from the town, bells and shouts carrying on the wind.

Castiel runs, because he has no other drive – he runs until he reaches the palisade, and this time is barely shocked when his body leaps, and his claws scrabble, taking him over the enormous barricade and dropping him gracefully on the other side.

When he reaches the line of the forest, he collapses in the undergrowth, chest heaving, body running with sweat and his legs shaking with exhaustion. He looks down at the wound on his arm, and touches it lightly.

Dean had done this to him. Infecting him with his devilry as traders passed their diseases on to common whores. He feels fear rising in him. Too much pain has been visited on him, too much has been taken. His purity, his dignity, and now his humanity.

He touches the wound again, and feels...something warm under his breastbone, like a hand pressed to the inside of his ribs.

Dean.

He can feel Dean, somewhere...not close...but not beyond his reach either.

He gets to his feet.

Dean is imprisoned. He knows this. And Dean is his mate – which seems more important to him now than ever, a certainty in his fevered mind.

Dean had tried to protect him.

Now Castiel would save his life.


	15. Chapter 15

Dean is curled up in the corner of the cage, trying to rest in a way that keeps his body warm, and the hard angle of his hips and elbows off of the hard metal. He hasn't found the correct position yet, and he knows that he will not, even if he turns this way and that for the rest of his life.

The men who brought him to this place are gone, and new men are talking outside the canvas that covers his cage. These men are not concerned with him, they throw him bread crusts smeared with mud, earth spattered potato peelings, and the bones of the meat that they eat, more to mock him than to nourish him. Dean eats whatever they give him, cracking the bones and eating their marrow, gnawing the bread and scraps. He needs strength. And strength comes from food, and rest and water. He has water only because of a hole in the canvas, that allows rain into the enclosure. It runs over the top of his cage, running down the bars where he can lick it from the metal. The water tastes of iron.

He still can't sleep, maybe that's why he feels so weak.

Dean wishes he could sense better, that he could change his form, but he can't. So he tries to get what he can with his human ears and nose. Which isn't much. He can smell fire, and cooking, hear men talking, shouting and singing tunelessly. It's night, and he can hear animals outside of the camp, birds and small rustling rabbits. That's it.

There's another kind of sense, one that tells him that he's closer to Sam than he's been in days. Sam is still far, far away, but not as far.

Castiel is closer too.

It takes Dean a while to pinpoint him. He's moving, his mate is getting closer. Dean sits up, cold and weak but suddenly sensing Castiel, close. Very close.

And getting closer by the second.

Castiel is coming for him.

(-*-)

Castiel runs through the woods, his limbs aching more with every step. It feels like his bones are fine crystal, being struck by a silver fork. Humming and singing inside of him. His fingers suddenly snap, and Castiel drops to the ground, crying out in pain. He looks at his hands, finding that his fingers are bent, clawed over and set that way. The claws that come from under his nail beds have pierced through the leather gloves.

Slowly, he gets to his feet, and starts to run again.

Something is happening to him. He is changing, becoming something akin to Dean and Sam. A shape shifter, a heathen demon. He remembers all too well what Dean had gone through to become a man once more, and the thought that such a monstrous thing happening to him makes him feel sick.

Still, like a whip driving him on, there is the knowledge that Dean is somewhere close by. Dean needs him. And he needs Dean. It grows stronger with each footfall, with each twinge of his spine. As if the transformation visiting itself upon him is taking him to Dean. Urgently sending him towards the one that made him this way, towards his mate.

Castiel looks at the path ahead and finds that, to his surprise, he can see each tree distinctly. He can easily see the difference between an elm and a pine tree, the shapes of their leaves are sharp to his eyes. A scuffle in the leaves at his side catches his eye, and Castiel watches a small brown bird pick at the debris of the forest floor.

He sees everything as though it were daylight. A demon's sight, to see as clear under the moon, as with the sun.

Ahead of him, the trees thin and Castiel sees another palisade, noticeably rougher in construction than the one that had guarded New Haven. This one has a large gate in the side, studded with iron, held up with thick ropes and coils of chain. Castiel uses his claws to shred the gloves on his hands, and dispenses with his cloak.

He climbs the palisade with barely a thought, as if some part of his mind is suppressing his own fear at these strange additions to his body. He reaches the top of the construction and leaps easily down onto the wet, muddy slop of the ground inside.

There's a campfire off to the side, surrounded by several man-shaped shadows. Four tents close to them, and a log cabin over to the left. Surrounding Castiel are the skeletons of several carts and wagons, and a hitching post with one horse at it. A small camp, as thieves would set up. Or hired soldiers.

The horse scents Castiel seconds later, and rears up, its eyes white with fear as it screams into the night, its breath white in the cold.

The men at the fire look up, and instantly go for their weapons, shouting to their fellows, six of them, who come running from the tents and the cabin, slithering on the marshy ground. Each man has a rifle and a bandolier with a knife and pistol. Twelve men. Armed, experienced, and with a vested interest in returning his skin to Crowley, or at least, to Crowley's home.

Castiel looks at them, and it's almost as if he has lost all capacity for fear.

The men come closer, and their faces are fearful, half violent, half terrified. He wonders what these past hours have made of him. Whether his hands are all that have changed, or if he is now deformed and twisted. Barely a man.

He tries to speak, for the first time since waking to find his captor dead. But only a low growl escapes him. No words, just that sound, which makes the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

One of the men cocks his rifle.

Castiel lunges.

(-*-)

Dean grasps the bars of his cage and strains to hear anything other than screaming.

The screaming had started moments ago, high, fearful yelps and cries of terror. Human terror. Rifle shots echoed in the night, their sharp report followed by shouts of directions, rally cries, and then more screams. Pistol shots. Shouts. One horrified moan of pain cut off in a loud, wet, _crack_.

Then a snarl.

A snarl that carries on the wind to where Dean is locked in his cage. A sound that carries anger, victory and frustration all at once.

Dean shouts wordlessly back.

Running feet slap on the mud outside, and all at once the canvas is snatched aside, revealing, the in the glow of a fire that is fast spreading to one of the tents outside, the blood-soaked form of Castiel.

Dean sticks his arm out through the bars, and Castiel leaps forwards, grasping his hand in his own warped one, pressing close to the bars of the cage. Dean leans forwards and touches their faces together, feeling blood slip against his skin. Castiel is breathing heavily, whimpering at the end of each breath. He's changing. Quickly.

"I need..." Dean says, but Castiel is already thrusting a bloodied bunch of keys at him.

Dean struggles with the lock, trying key after key after key, while Castiel slips gracelessly to the muddy floor, bracing himself on hands and knees, shaking with suppressed pain.

It takes Dean what feels like an age to free himself, but at last he forces the door of the cage open, and goes to Castiel's side, touching him, looking him over and trying to work out what's happening to him.

Castiel whimpers quietly.

"I know, it hurts." Dean tells him. "First change does." He inspects Castiel's claws, and the matching ones growing on his feet. They look wrong, not like Dean's own. He frowns, certain that something is amiss here.

"I've never turned anyone." He admits to Castiel. "I was born with this. But, my father, told us that for people, it's a disease. It hurts. It can kill, or hurt badly, a hurt that doesn't go away."

Castiel is sweating, his skin already shining with it, and he trembles and jerks on the floor. Soon. It's all going to happen very soon, and Dean has no way to stop it. He looks at Castiel's fragile throat and wonders if perhaps it wouldn't be kinder simply to snap his neck. Dean remembers stories his father had told him. Warnings. Tribesmen who tried to turn their powerless relatives, and who made them half wolves by accident. Men with twisted arms, and faces like rotting bodies.

Castiel's whole body spasms, and Dean realises that he's out of time, just as Castiel starts to scream.

Dean watches as his mate's skin roils and stretches, hears his joints pop and his bones break while Castiel screams himself hoarse, and is finally silenced when his throat rips, and his voice is stolen from him. He screams in silence, and his teeth are squeezed from his bloody gums like pips from a crushed fruit, new, sharp fangs slicing their way upwards. The skin peels from his tongue, leaving a raw muscle that writes in a silent shout.

The skin of his body splits open, and underneath a thick, wet hide begins to sprout hair. His fleshy ears peel away, and his whole skull cracks as it reforms and grows. Castiel's spine lengthens, ripping free from his skin and hanging loose as ribbons of new skin lace themselves over the bloody bone.

His voice returns with a reedy whine, that turns into a screech, and finally ebbs away into silence as Castiel collapses, shaking, onto his side.

Dean stares at his mate, a knot of fear in his throat.

Something has definitely gone wrong.

(-*-)

The pain is gone, and Castiel is so grateful, that he would crawl to Michael's feet and give his forgiveness for his betrayal, if only the pain would not return.

He never wants to feel that agony again.

It takes a few moments, but gradually, he becomes aware of a hand stroking his side. It's a tickly sensation, and a moment later Castiel realises that this is because the hand on him is gently ruffling his new fur. He opens his eyes, and sees Dean, far, far above him, leaning over him and brushing his hand over his body.

Castiel tries to speak, and no sound comes out, save for a small noise.

Dean strokes him and says something that it takes a moment for Castiel to reconfigure into something he can understand.

"I don't know what you are."

Castiel doesn't understand. He's a wolf, surely? Dean had bitten him, and Dean could change into a wolf, that was the legacy he carried from his father. So, logically, Castiel had been given a share in that legacy too.

He tries to look at himself, but this is quite difficult, he catches only a glimpse of spotted fur and a long, full, tail before he cannot move his head further up. He growls in impatience.

"We have to leave." Dean tells him, and Castiel responds by getting to his shaking feet (all four of them, which makes him feel confused for a moment, before some part of his mind teaches him how to walk). His paws are covered in blood, and without thinking he lifts one and starts to lick it clean. He becomes so engrossed in this task that he doesn't notice Dean shifting beside him, until his muzzle bumps the side of his face and the familiar wolf shape of Dean's body patters over the mud, leading the way out of the tent.

Castiel follows.

It's altogether very strange, being in this new form. His senses are heightened, he can smell the night air, the mingled odours of smoke from the burning tent, the gunpowder smoke, the touch of urine in the soil. The slaughtered bodies of the men let off a scent of blood, but also of residual fear.

Dean picks over the bodies, looking at them, and then back at Castiel, waving his tail approvingly.

Castiel follows after him, and is momentarily stumped by the presence of the high fence, which he can no longer climb. He is surprised when Dean scrabbles at the mud, gouging out a small tunnel for them to pass through.

Castiel drops low to the ground and wriggles into the small hole distastefully. It smells of rotted wood and damp roots. On the other side, he has barely a second to get to his feet and reach the cover of the forest, before he's knocked off them again by Dean, who throws him onto his back, pouncing on top of him and scenting him quickly, a soft growl catching in his throat. Castiel knows that he must smell Crowley, even under the fresh blood.

Dean steps back, and starts to clean the blood from Castiel's fur with gentle swipes of his tongue. Castiel offers up his paws readily, and closes his eyes in contentment, his pain almost forgotten. Dean is returned to him, and every part of his body sings 'mate' with intoxicating joy. Finally, he allows himself to feel safe.


	16. Chapter 16

_So, this is the last chapter. Thanks to everyone who's been with this fic since the beginning, for encouraging me to write (and write, and write) I am planning a little bit of a follow up, about the expansion of the pack etc etc. But I felt this was a good place to wrap up this particular story. _

In the dark of the forest, with the scent of raging fire and smoke blackening the clear air around them, Castiel closes his new eyes and basks in the warmth of his fur, and of the rough tongue that gently cleans him. Dean makes soft sounds in the back of his throat – gruff noises of curiosity, and suspicion as he comes across new scents and tastes on Castiel's hide. Castiel wonders, dimly, how he can explain Crowley. The yellow room. Balthazar. Alistair. That dinner. The drugged wine. Waking, soiled, afraid. Almost being taken again. Tied down. Strapped. The images, and his own fear, scramble through his mind like the leaves of a book blown apart by the wind.

And in that second, Castiel is suddenly aware that Dean knows. Dean _knows_, because he can see these things inside of Castiel's mind.

Just like Castiel knows that this is not some ability of Dean's race. This is theirs, and theirs alone.

More emotions, more pictures assault him. But these pictures are Dean's – the cold cage and dark tent, the men who threw food to him, the rank sight of that food, the feeling that Castiel was in pain, unbearable. Then, something from before, back in the cave at the moment of their capture, Dean's mind a frantic snarl, like a tangle of briar – and the knowledge that Castiel is vulnerable. Human. (seeing himself from Dean's perspective is odd, because he does not look at all how he imagines himself to look, or how his rare glimpses of his reflection show him he looks. Dean sees him as...something almost otherworldly. He shines in Dean's eyes, like a man shaped figure carved from the moon, only warm, and _safe. _A figure that promises such love that Castiel can barely stand to view himself through Dean's mind).

He sees the bite on his own arm, livid and fresh in Dean's memory, and understands that it was made to protect him. To give him the power to protect himself.

Dean nudges him onto his freshly washed stomach, and Castiel lies on the forest floor, lulled by the sudden lack of danger, by the return of the familiar scents of the forest, and of Dean. There's a warm pulse in his mind as Dean's heavy, lupine body settles on top of him, and that pulse is singularly warm and pleasing as a bed by the fire. _Mate. _

Castiel is almost a stranger to himself. All has been stripped away, left with his clothes in some place which is now lost to him. Before, imprisoned with Crowley, he had mourned the loss of his innocence, his purity. As he had transformed, he had hated Dean for ripping away his humanity. But now...now he feels almost nothing of his human self. His mind is no longer repeatedly stabbed and skewered by guilt, or fear, or helplessness. He can only feel the soft, mist like warmth of his mate's presence, wrapping around his every nerve and making them sing.

When Dean enters him, Castiel barely gives a thought to right and wrong, pain and pleasure. It feels nothing like it did when he was human, when he could feel hot, agonising pleasure arching through both of them, aching, demanding, despite being so devotional. Now it's like being enfolded in an embrace. Connected. Loved. His paws scuff the dirt, and Dean moves on him, nosing the back of his neck, ruffling, nipping and laving the fur. Castiel feels a deep contentment, under the weight of his mate. His _alpha. _The word comes almost naturally. Dean is his alpha. And that's all he holds in his mind. Dean. Dean. Dean.

Something rumbles in his chest, involuntarily, a deep, low sound. Over and over, like a house cat prostrate on the sunny ground, kneaded into oblivion.

The part of Dean inside of him grows, and Castiel arches a little, rubbing his back against Dean's belly. The wolf rests on top of him, burying its nose in his fur, whimpering. Castiel is curious as to the feeling he has now, the new feeling of being stretched inside, as Dean releases his fluid inside of him. It should probably appal him. But, the purr still rumbles in his chest, and he finds inside himself instead, a deep satisfaction.

When the bulging root of Dean's member recedes, he moves off of Castiel, and Castiel stands reluctantly. He wants to curl up and sleep, but he knows that they are not so safe here that they can afford to linger.

Dean rubs against his side fondly, rushing round him to lick his face, and sniff at his hind legs, where Castiel can feel a slight wetness prickling his fur. Dean leads him into the woods, and they walk together, alternatively chasing and trotting through the trees.

A night songbird flutters past, and Castiel pounces before he thinks, catching it with one paw and bringing it down to the earth, dead. He picks it up carefully, and prowls after Dean, presenting it at his mate's feet and rubbing up against his side, his long, full tail twisting, drawing it's silky length over Dean's nose. Dean sniffs, and skitters about on his paws, tongue lolling in amusement. He tears into the small bird, famished, and eats what he can, lifting his muzzle to find that Castiel is waiting to lick the blood from him.

They pass through the forest, and Castiel realises, quite unexpectedly, that he is happy.

Dean leads him onwards, and the way begins to look familiar, until once again, Castiel is confronted with the burrow that Dean and Sam had first taken him to. He enters of his own accord, and finds the shadowed, root mapped space to be as comforting as a childhood haunt.

They curl up together on the ground, nose to tail, in a circle of furred limbs.

(-*-)

When Castiel wakes, he stretches, and realises that he has hands and feet once more. He looks at his naked, mud speckled arms and legs in surprise, and notices Dean's naked form beside him, where he's lying, face down on the trodden earth. Dean is once more in human form, and without thinking, Castiel traces one, raw nailed hand over his arching, tanned back, down to the hollow just before the swell of his buttocks. Dean stirs, and Castiel removes his hand. Watching, and waiting.

When Dean opens his eyes, he notices Castiel's change immediately, and seems pleased that it was successful. His expression dims when he sees the darkness on Castiel's face.

"I killed them." Castiel says, and feels his stomach clench painfully tight. He had not just killed, he had torn those men apart. He remembers the feel of their muscled necks his hands, the way their flesh had given to his teeth and claws, the way the hot blood and slithered down his throat.

All the guilt that had left him when he became an animal returns a thousand fold, and Castiel shivers, and feels his eyes prickle with tears. Crowley was a monster. Crowley had tried to hurt him, and yet still, Castiel was worse – because he had ripped Crowley open, and played with the heavy, stinking sacks of his organs, splashed his blood gleefully over the bedroom. He had seen the evidence of it.

He had allowed Dean to mate him, still able to smell the dismembered bodies of those men on the smoky wind.

Castiel is still trembling with horror when Dean kisses him, a ferocious kiss that forces hunger into Castiel's shrivelled soul.

"He hurt you." Dean tells him, and Castiel knows that Dean has seen it all, read it from the corpuscles of his own brain. Dean kisses him again, and Castiel moves his mouth in response, willing the oblivion of his transformed self to return.

"They took us, hurt us." Dean says, meaning the men from the camp.

"I did a terrible thing." Castiel tells him, eyes shining, his tears making Dean's certain face waver. "I've done so many terrible things."

Dean pushes him gently to the floor, where he can crowd him soothingly on the sleep warmed dirt. And it is, soothing, so much so that Castiel closes his eyes and breathes in the scent of dirt, skin, roots and sweat that clings to both of them, along with a heavy musk that must be a remnant of Dean's wolf body. Or perhaps his own.

"You survived." Dean tells him, and Castiel knows that it's true. That, to Dean, all the men that are dead because of him, might as well be rabbits, or bloody songbirds. Casualties of life. Dean shares no kinship with men. And now neither does Castiel.

Dean cups his face, his other hand pressing the pinkish ring of scaring tissue on Castiel's arm. "I did this for you. I survived for you."

Castiel holds onto to him, and leans upwards to kiss Dean, as every part of him demands that he must. Afterwards he leans his forehead against Dean's and says, "I love you." Because he does. Though it hurts more than he ever thought it would, though it scares him and has changed him beyond all recognition. He loves, and so he will survive.

(-*-)

The next day is the one for which Sam had slated his return. Dean is twitchy, excited but also morose and worried. Castiel, himself lost between his guilt and his newly born love for his mate, tries his best to settle Dean and console him.

They shift back and forth, restlessly, mating as animals (as if Dean senses that this way, Castiel does not feel the heavy weight of his Christian guilt during the act) and curling up as men to touch and kiss and sleep for a while. After one such rest, Dean rolls on top of Castiel, strong limbs touching his, coaxing him into a position in which Dean can mount him, their faces close. Expecting pain, Castiel is surprised to find himself already wet, partly with Dean's last release, and partly with something that smells strongly of the musk that he had detected on waking. Too tired to think much on it, Castiel accepts that, as Dean's mate, and with his new found flexibility of form, his body can now act as that of a woman. He has heard men talking rudely of women, and their wetness, and now he knows to what they referred, this slick of mating, that makes Dean moan as he enters him, covering himself in the musky sweetness that is evidence of Castiel's desire.

Castiel cannot control himself with Dean moving inside of him. It feels so good, so instinctive, that his busy mind is blissfully quietened. Pleasure roars through him, and his claws slide forth, catching at Dean's back and making him grunt, and then groan with pleasure. As men, they couple like animals, sweating, grappling, forcing their bodies together and aching when they part.

It is delicious. The perfect madness.

Castiel can feel the animal within him even when he is in the shape of a man, lying, spent, beside Dean on the earthen floor. The animal, whatever it is, is sharper than a man, more cunning, more violent. But it is fiercely loyal to Dean, and to Castiel, he can feel it. It has a power that he never dreamt he could possess. And, as guilty as he feels over killing Crowley, and his men...he knows that he would do it again.

Dean has killed for him, and this does not upset him, he expects it. The animal expects it. Just as it expects Castiel to kill for Dean. To kill anyone or anything that threatens their lives, or the life of Sam.

Pack instinct, Castiel is learning, is a much better master than the church ever was to him.

The church made him feel weak, and grateful, and meek. Washed in the tears of a virgin, and left to dry in an icy puritan wind.

The pack charges him with its survival, bathing him in blood and licking him clean. It calls to him from within, in the voice of his thundering heart. Flesh and blood, death and pleasure. And he has never felt as alive as he does when he feels Dean calling him.

When Sam returns, Dean scents him almost immediately. The burrow is on the way to the cave, and that must be where Sam is headed. Dean, still wearing his wolf form, bolts from Castiel's side with a sharp bark, and Castiel follows without question, his paws quick and silent on the earth.

They emerge into starlight, having lost track of the day. Dean runs a little way along the path, then stops to listen. He howls, a short, blunt sound, and then prances on the spot as a tall figure emerges from the trees.

Castiel catches up with Dean, and see's Sam, carrying his bundle, and with his arm around a shorter figure, bundled heavily in clothes.

Dean sits, waiting for Sam to come forwards, he does, bringing the newcomer with him.

"Dean." Sam says, voice low and respectful. Their time apart has altered him a little, his hair has been cut, and his clothes are new ones, made by hand. The scent of a female bound up in their stitches. "This, is Jessica."

The figure takes down her hood, revealing a pretty, if pale and nervous face, and long waves of blond hair. Castiel steps forwards curiously, and when Sam sees him he looks shocked, and backs away.

Dean wuffs reassuringly.

"Dean, what did you do?" Sam demands, anger evident in his voice.

Dean stiffens, hairs prickling with anger at Sam's tone. Castiel rubs against him soothingly, and Dean subsides for the most part, too happy to have Sam returned to him to worry about such a small infraction.

"You turned a human." Sam breathes. "Castiel...I'm so sorry I left you." He looks so sad, and for a moment, Castiel doesn't know why. Before he remembers that this thing that Dean has done to him, is probably as deeply possessive as he could have been, and that Sam must see it as proof of his violation.

Castiel rubs against Dean, then lies at his feet and purrs to show his acquiescence to his current state.

Sam doesn't seem to know what to make of them. He turns instead to Jessica. "This is my brother, Dean...and Castiel."

Dean whines.

"I told her about us...I showed her." Sam admits, saying quickly. "Her mother was tried for witchcraft, and Jess knows something about the creatures of this world, if only from her stories." He places a hand on her stomach, which Castiel now notices, is great with child. "Her husband perished on the crossing from England, and now no family will offer her charity."

Jessica seems scared, but curious, and Castiel thinks that this will serve her well when it comes time to explain exactly who he is, and what he is to Dean. They will have to tell Sam of Crowley, and of their need for a new home. A story that will be etched into their memories and told repeatedly.

The pack has pups, after a fashion. Jessica's children from her husband. Assured successors for their pack of strays. That night, sheltering in another cave, not so well protected as their last, but more suitable for Jess and her swollen stomach, Dean nudges Sam to bed with his mate, and then comes to keep Castiel warm through the night.

There are many things to be feared, Castiel knows this – Cold, hunger, cruelty, villainy, incarceration. But love is not one of them. And neither is Dean.


End file.
